Tackling the challenges of discoverability and monetisation on Amazon Alexa with Jo Jaquinta

Today, we're getting deep into the biggest challenges facing
designers and developers on the Alexa platform: being discovered
and making money. And who better to take us through it, than one
of the most experienced developers on the voice scene, Jo 'the
Oracle' Jaquinta.


Speak to anyone who's serious about voice first development and
they'll tell you the two biggest challenges facing the voice
first world right now are skill discoverability and monetisation.
Vasili Shynkarenka of Storyline mentioned it and so did Matt
Hartman of Betaworks when they featured on the VUX World
podcast previously.


However, we rarely hear stories from people who've tried
everything they can to overcome these challenges. Until now.


In this episode, we're joined by Dustin Coates as co-host and
we're speaking to Jo about his vast experience of designing and
developing on the Amazon Alexa platform and how he's approached
tackling those two big challenges.


We also discuss voice UX design techniques that Jo's picked up
along the way, as well as the tools and techniques he uses for
developing skills.


This one is jam-packed with epic insights from someone who few
know more than in this space right now, and includes discussion
on a vast array of subjects including:


Discoverability:


The impact of advertising on increasing skill adoption

The effect of being featured in the Amazon Alexa newsletter

What Amazon can do to help skill discovery

How transferring between modalities can loose users






Monetisation:


The challenges of turning skill development into a business

The difference between Google’s and Amazon’s strategy

The two ways to make money from voice: the easy way and the
hard way

Why a monetisation API shouldn't be the focus for developers

Why Amazon Alexa developer payouts are bad for the voice
environment






Design:


The challenges of designing for voice with a screen

How immersive audio games help the visually impaired

How Amazon could improve the UX for users by moving to a
'streaming' approach to voice

Why you shouldn’t be aiming for a ‘conversational’ experience

What is the method of Loci and how can it be used when
designing for voice?






Development:


Fuzzy matching

Building and maintaining your own library and SDK

Cross platform development






Other gems include:


Structural problems with the Alexa platform

How company culture affects voice strategy

Why it’s not early days in voice

Alexa for business and privacy


Our Guest

Jo Jaquinta is a software developer with over 20 years'
experience. Jo started building skills on the Alexa platform a
short time after it was released, has created a host of
interesting skills and learned plenty along the way through
pulling Alexa in all kinds of different directions. His
knowledge, experience and plenty of lessons learned were all
applied in building Jo's most recent skill, the madly complex, 6
Swords.


Jo shares plenty of his voice design and development knowledge on
his YouTube channel, which is full of engaging and interesting
insights, and has put pen to paper to share his knowledge in the
shape of two books on Alexa: How to Program Amazon
Echo and Developing Amazon Alexa Games. He's also
active on the Alexa Slack channel, helping people solve their
development problems and consulting on voice design and
development.


What Jo doesn't know about developing on Alexa isn't worth
knowing. His immense knowledge and vast experience in this area
are pretty much unrivalled, which is why I refer to him as 'the
Oracle'.






Links

Find Jo on the Alexa Slack channel

Listen to the Voicebot.ai episode featuring Jo

Find out more about Tsa Tsa Tzu

Check out 6 Swords

Watch Jo's videos on YouTube

YouTube: making money on Alexa, the easy way and the hard way

Read Jo's books: How to Program Amazon
Echo and Developing Amazon Alexa Games


Where to Listen:

iTunes/Apple podcasts

Spotify

TuneIn

iHeartRadio

Stitcher



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