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
Canalys has released its latest numbers on smart speaker sales, and the research firm found that Google beat out Amazon for most units sold globally in Q1 2018. Overall, sales in this product category rose 210% to 9 million units based on Canalys’ accounting. Continue Reading
Amazon currently leads the industry for smart speakers, but more international competition has started to chip away at its dominant market share. Market research company Strategy Analytics released its first-quarter report on the product category. The analysis found that 9.2 million units were shipped globally in the period. Continue Reading
We know from The Smart Audio Report conducted by Edison Research and NPR, that smart speakers have a special (and perhaps unpredicted) appeal to kids, and therefore to parents who are bringing Alexa devices into their homes. research summary. iHeartRadio is leaping into that space with an announcement today that it will be the default provider of live music content for the newly launched Echo Dot Kids Edition, and the FreeTime Unlimited skill in Alexa. Continue Reading
Netflix has launched an interactive audio drama on Google’s smart speakers to promote its reboot of Lost in Space. The audio experience, which was produced in collaboration between Google and Netflix, gives listeners a branching narrative with multiple-choice questions and answers that lets them aid key characters from the program. Continue Reading
The Infinite Dial Canada looked at the uptake of smart speakers in the country, as well as pointing out some unique trends compared with the southern neighbors. In Canada, smart speaker ownership is 8% of the adult population. People aged 35-54 were most likely to own smart speakers at 11%, followed by ages 18-34 at 10%. Continue Reading