Walking Makes The Road

Background A few days ago Amazon announced Alexa platform's support for notifications. That is indeed a positive step forward and adds up to the proactiveness of Alexa. The latter property was interestingly one of the main points emphasized by a number of private comments to my last post published [ here ] and [ here ]. According to my readers, the Alexa virtual assistant of the fictional scenarios I have referred to was rather a version way too advanced compared to the actual Amazon Alexa.  Notifications are indeed a positive step forward and indicate more and better proactiveness of Alexa That's absolutely true. My imaginary interactions (designed for the specific article's purposes) were obviously based on an Alexa platform concept pretty far from what we have today. My fictional Alexa was obviously geared more towards an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) concept while today's Alexa is still based on a model just a few, although meaningful, steps passed

Background After several months of 24 by 7 peddling of the virtues of voice-first devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home as the ultimate anticipation of the upcoming golden age of user experience, many marketers and self-styled voice-first forecasters find suddenly themselves in an embarrassing situation of confusion and uncomfortable backpedaling. Some major players such as Amazon and reportedly Apple are either releasing or allegedly planning to release a new breed of (former?) voice-first devices with tablet-sized screens. The fundamental explanation is the dramatic discovery that voice alone is unable to do the trick for users way too accustomed to relying on visual cues to fulfill their desired intents. Does that mean we are back to normal and the voice-first urban legend already shattered and the "Shamanic" empowerment is vacating the front seat? Time will tell. Is the voice-first urban legend already shattered? Is the user's "Shamanic" empowerme

Background During the last few months, we have read and heard a lot about the need and possible ways that some sort of monetization could and should be allowed to entice and reward the Voice-First app developers. This is indeed a totally legit demand and should receive an adequate answer. Yet, as an emerging, though rapidly expanding technology field and market segment, the revenue stream generation might face a number of complexities that require survey-based fact gathering, careful analysis and an open debate among all the interested parties.  Monetization could take place in a number of ways by following available paradigms. At first glance, a hypothetical monetization could take place in a number of ways by following available paradigms. Here is a quick but not necessarily comprehensive list: Revenue generated through direct voice-app sales and marketing based essentially on the developer's shoulders with or without the Voice-First platform provider's direct suppor