Google is reinventing a standard feature in smart speakers: the news update. Made famous by Amazon Echo’s “Flash Briefing,” Google’s version is invoked by “Play the news.” The initiative would bring the vast news collection capability of Google News into the voice activation realm. Continue Reading
Voice assistants have a steadily growing presence in smartphones and at-home entertainment. Now the technology is making a decisive move out onto the road with industry-leader Amazon. Continue Reading
The Spring 2018 edition of The Smart Audio Report, produced by NPR and Edison Research, will be released tomorrow (Wednesday July 18) in a 1pm webinar. It is a key research report about the adoption and use of smart speakers, arguably the most important new distribution platform since smartphones. In a teaser release, NPR and Edison have revealed a few key findings. Continue Reading
Canalys, a British research firm, has released its latest projections for smart speakers. The company anticipates that the smart speaker installed base will reach 100 million by the end of 2018. By 2020, it estimates the installed base will reach 225 million units. Continue Reading
Nielsen has released an Audio Today Report, this one including some metrics around the use of, and interest in, smart speakers and streaming services. Outside of that focus, the report examines the reach of Black and Hispanic listeners to radio, both now and over five years. Continue Reading
Sonos has filed an IPO. According to the paperwork, the wireless speaker company is looking to raise up to $100 million with the public offering. It said that as of March 31, it has sold 19 million products to 6.9 million households. Continue Reading
Guest columnist Steve Pratt is co-owner and Partner of Pacific Content. In this piece, he compares smart speakers in 2018 to the iPod in 2004. In 2004, the new iPod was “waiting for the podcast to be invented.” If smart speakers are poised in a similar moment, what sort of content might be in the future? Continue Reading
So far, voice assistants are commonly used to access audio entertainment, but as the technology advances, the next step could involve commerce and shopping. Voicebot and Voysis have collaborated on a report pointing to the future of voice shopping. The analysis predicts that, due to the high rates of ownership (79.8%), many people will first be introduced to voice assistant shopping on smartphones. Continue Reading
TuneIn has partnered with Adobe Advertising Cloud to expand how advertisers can reach their audiences on smart speakers and other new devices. The on demand marketplace from Adobe Advertising Cloud allows advertisers to automate their ad buys across TuneIn’s content. In addition to the Adobe deal, TuneIn also announced that it has launched a newly designed channel for Roku devices. Continue Reading
Sonos has taken its ambitious next step into the smart speaker space with a new product that supports multiple voice assistants and changes the form factor. The Sonos Beam is a sound bar, a much larger device than the most popular tabletop smart speaker designs currently on the market, that’s capable of providing quality audio for a range of entertainment purposes in small- or medium-sized rooms. Continue Reading
As an indication of how audio publishers are flowing into smart speaker distribution, tech company XAPPmedia announced it has enabled over 1,000 voice-enabled apps on the Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant platforms. Continue Reading
Start-up Scout.fm is elbowing its way into the crossover space of podcast listening smart speakers. The platform began as a series of experiments on the Amazon Alexa platform and after testing many different voice skills, the team developed a podcast service that tailors recommendations to each listener’s preferences. Continue Reading