Alexa, What’s A New Feature?
A critique of What’s New
Re-reading the past ten “Keep up with Alexa” newsletters was an interesting exercise. It revealed that those newsletters don’t really talk about what’s new but try to highlight interesting applications of Alexa. Jeopardy was mentioned multiple times. The Tonight Show got a few mentions. It wasn’t so much about new capabilities as it was about cool ones.
So what is new about Alexa?
A few things jumped out such as playing a bedtime timer with a light, having a playlist play everywhere, or voice access to new services like Hulu. We’re in the long tail of capabilities. The killer apps for Alexa were discovered six years ago.
The next physical UI is still ahead of us. Amazon may play a role but there is room for startups to get in. The main players will be able to create augmented reality without the goggles or phones.
