Hearing voices: a strategic view of the voice space with Matt Hartman

This week, Dustin and I are joined by Matt Hartman, partner at
Betaworks, curator of the Hearing Voices newsletter and creator
of the Wiffy Alexa Skill.


In this episode, we’re discussing:





All about Betaworks

A strategic vision for voice

Changing user behaviour

On-demand interfaces

Friction and psychological friction

How context influences your design interface

The 2 types of companies that’ll get built on voice platforms

Differences between GUI and VUI design

Voice camp

The Wiffy Alexa Skill

Lessons learned building your first Alexa Skill

Text message on-boarding

Challenges in the voice space




Our Guest, Matt Hartman

Matt Hartman has been with Betaworks for the past 4 years and
handles the investment side of the company. Matt spends his days
with his ear to the ground, meeting company founders and
entrepreneurs, searching for the next big investment
opportunities.


Paying attention to trends in user behaviour and searching for
the next new wave of technology that will change the way people
communicate has led Matt and Betaworks to focus on the voice
space.


Matt has developed immense knowledge and passion for voice and is
a true visionary. He totally gets the current state of play in
the voice space and is a true design thinker. He has an
entirely different and unique perspective on the voice scene: the
voice ecosystem, voice strategy, user behaviour trends,
challenges and the future of the industry.


Matt curates the Hearing Voices newsletter to share his reading
with the rest of the voice space and created the Wiffy Alexa
Skill, which lets you ask Alexa for the Wifi password. It’s one
of the few Skills that receives the fabled Alexa Developer
Reward.



Betaworks

Betaworks is a startup platform that builds products like bit.ly,
Chartbeat and GIPHY. It invests in companies like Tumblr,
Kickstarter and Medium and has recently turned its
attention to audio and voice platforms such as Anchor, Breaker
and Gimlet.


As part of voice camp in 2017, Betaworks invested in a host of
voice-first companies including Jovo, who featured on episode 5
of the VUX World podcast, as well as Spoken
Layer, Shine and John Done, which conversational AI
guru, Jeff Smith (episode 4), was involved in.



Links

Subscribe to the Hearing Voices newsletter

Check out the Wiffy Alexa Skill

Follow Matt on Twitter

Visit Matt's website

Matt's article: Interfaces on demand

Matt's article: Lessons Learned Building my First Alexa Skill

Follow Matt Hartman on Medium

Find out more about Betaworks






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