This Thursday, I was fortunate to be invited by Bradley Metrock, the host of the podcast, “This Week in Voice,” to sit down with him and discuss the top stories of the week that pertain to Voice technology. I was joined by fellow panelist, Sarah Storm, who is the Head of the cloud studio, SpokenLayer, and the three of us went back and forth around what’s new in the VoiceFirst world.
The great thing about this podcast is that Bradley brings on a wide variety of people with different backgrounds on this show, so that each week you get a different perspective into the stories of the week. This week, we talked about the following five stories:
- New York Times: Why We May Soon Be Living in Alexa’s World
This story serves as a revelation of sorts, as it’s the realization that Alexa, and the other smart assistants, are not just merely new gadgets, but represent a shift in how we communicate with computers as a whole. - VoiceBot.ai: Spotify Working on New Smart Speaker?
The fact that Spotify posted two separate job openings for senior positions around a new hardware division turned a lot of heads. This is particularly interesting given the impending IPO, as Spotify might be looking to make some pretty dramatic moves prior to going public. Would Spotify be better off vertically integrating itself via partnerships/acquisitions, or is it possible for them to create a hardware division from scratch? - Forbes: Meet the Voice Marketer
Voice represents an entirely new opportunity for brands to market themselves, but the question is how best do you use this new medium? With more personal data than ever at many of these brands’ disposal, it will be a challenge to balance the “creepy” with the truly proactive and engaging. - Satire (I think): Local Man to Marry Alexa
- The Voice of Healthcare Summit
Held at the Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston this August, this summit promises to be one of the best opportunities to gather with fellow Voice enthusiasts and healthcare professionals, to collaborate and learn about applying Voice to healthcare. This will be an awesome event and I encourage anyone to go who thinks this might be up their alley!
This was a great experience getting to sit in on this podcast and chat with Bradley and Sarah. I hope you enjoy this episode and cheers to more in the future!
Listen via:
Apple Podcasts; Google Play Music; Overcast; SoundCloud; Stitcher Radio; TuneIn
-Thanks for Reading-
Dave
Dave,
great podcast! I’m curious where you see Apple in the voice activated speaker market? Have they outpriced themselves in this market considering you can buy 8 echo dots for the price of one HomePod? Curious on your thoughts as I’ve always respected your expertise on tech.
Hi Dr. Spiguzza,
You’re absolutely right and that’s something I’ve been struggling to understand too – Apple’s HomePod product – market fit. From a music standpoint, you can buy two Sonos Play 1 speakers for the price of one HomePod. The “smart” aspects of the HomePod are severely limited too, so it almost doesn’t even make sense to compare it to something like an Amazon Echo, and to your point, if you are comparing them head to head, then you can get a number of Echos for the price of one HomePod.
The HomePod will certainly get better and more capable through software updates and iterations of the product, but it will be interesting to see how this first generation HomePod sells. If I were to bet, I’d say that Apple will struggle here initially as there isn’t a great product-market fit.