Podcasts about amazon skills

Giving the power of Amazon Skills creation to students. Teaching students and educators how to create automated classroom-related tasks for devices such as Echo and Alexa. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/edutechguys-conference/support

A while back, I visited a friend at his apartment. He didn't really have much furniture and his apartment could have been cleaner, but he was really proud of one thing he did have. We had this conversation: Him: Hey, check it out man. I got a HomePod. Me: Oh, nice! Him: Nice? That's what you're going to say to the owner of a HomePod? There's a reason why I wasn't that impressed. In case you don't know, a HomePod is Apple's voice-activated home device. While I usually like Apple products, even I got to admit Apple fucked up with that one. It's a solid product and it's got a great speaker, but it came out in 2018 - which was way too late in the game. Amazon's Echo, on the other hand, came out back in 2015, and now it pretty much dominates the smart home market. Anyway, you might be wondering why an online store like Amazon wastes time on something that seems so unrelated to its core business. Well, there's actually a pretty good reason for that. Let's talk about why Amazon invests so much into the home and why that might be a problem for customers. How Amazon can make your house smarter An Amazon Echo is a voice-activated device that you can use to play music, listen to Audiobooks, order pizzas, or ask questions - even if you're incredibly lazy and don't want to get out of bed. All you have to do is say something like “Hey Alexa, why did my girlfriend leave me?” You probably won't get an answer that fills the hole in your being, but the device will tell you something. Side note: I asked this to my Echo just to see what would happen. It said, “Sorry, I'm not sure.” Amazon's technology isn't just limited to its own devices - it's free-to-use for third-party manufacturers. Many of them were excited about the opportunity to make their devices voice-activated. Now, there are more than 140,000 products that work with Alexa such as lightbulbs and thermostats. But Amazon's ambitions didn't stop there. Back in 2018, Amazon bought the smart doorbell company Ring for $1 billion, which allows customers to look at who's at their door through their smartphone. It was another way for Amazon to ensure their dominance over the smart home market. Amazon's opportunity Back in September, Amazon had a product event that showed off some big improvements in Alexa. Now, it won't speak with the awkward pace that virtual assistants typically have. Instead, it can match the tone you're using and sound like it's taking more natural breaths and pauses. Also, Alexa now uses AI to make sure that when you ask it to do something like turn on a light, the delay is as short as possible. There's a reason why Amazon is investing so hard in improving the product. When the pandemic's over, our lives aren't going to be the same as what they were before. Companies all over the country are going to be more comfortable with hiring remote workers - which means people are going to be spending more time at home and less time at the office. When people like my buddy with the HomePod are spending more time at their apartments and realize how empty and dirty everything is, they're going to invest in upgrading their space. That's already happening in the home decor market. Right now, customers are making more purchases at companies like Home Depot and Restoration Hardware, which both saw big increases in their stock price in 2020. It's possible that these same customers will also invest in products that integrate with Alexa. What's Jeff Bezos's end goal? Even though the smart home market is growing, Amazon is just breaking even on Echos or even selling them at a loss. Obviously, Jeff Bezos isn't doing this out of the kindness in his heart. He's doing it because there's a couple of ways that the company can profit in the long-term. Making money on Amazon Skills Every time you buy an app on the App Store, a cut of the money is going to Apple. It's a highly-profitable business for them. 3rd-party app developers do the work. Then, Apple does a quick review to make sure there are no viruses and no way that the app can get around Apple's payment system. Once it's approved, Apple gets 30% of the revenue every time someone pays for the app. While Amazon's attempt to create a smartphone failed really badly, they did find a way to get in on this action with Amazon Skills. These are apps created by 3rd-party developers that integrate with Alexa. You can use these Skills to do things like play Jeopardy with your Echo device or order some pizza from Domino's. Just like Apple with the App Store, Amazon gets a 30% cut every time somebody buys a Skill on Echo. More personalization and more purchases  Part of the reason why the Amazon shopping experience is so great is that the company uses data to give customers more personalization. When you make a purchase off Amazon, you'll see recommendations for related products that can be scarily accurate. That happens because these recommendations are based on the data from the purchases of millions of other customers. Amazon knows exactly what customers with interests to similar you are buying and will recommend the same items to you. Alexa is an opportunity for Amazon to collect even more data. If Amazon has access to what customers are saying to their Alexa devices, they can better understand these customers' wants and needs. That means Amazon can make their recommendation engine even more personalized and push these customers to make more purchases. Plus, when you've got so many voice-activated devices around, it's easier than ever to make a purchase off of Amazon - which means more revenue for the company. All you have to do is say “Hey Alexa, I'm out of soap. Buy me some more.” Then, your Alexa device places an order on your Prime account. Amazon's even taken steps to encourage people to do this. For a long time, if you tried to buy Amazon products off of Alexa, it would give you cheaper prices than anything you could find if you just went on Amazon.com on your smartphone or laptop. It was a genius way of getting people to start making voice purchases a habit. The privacy concerns behind letting Amazon into your house Amazon devices might make it easier than ever for you to be lazy and never have to leave your couch, but some people are understandably pretty uncomfortable with the idea of a Big Tech company knowing what's going on inside their homes. This isn't some nonsensical conspiracy you heard from your buddy who's a hardcore Joe Rogan fan. Amazon has thousands of contractors who comb through voice and text transcripts of Alexa devices. While this does help Alexa deliver better responses over time, lots of customers don't want total strangers looking through personal searches and purchases. Some of these transcripts aren't wiped from Amazon's servers, even when a user deletes the conversations. That's not the only privacy issue that Amazon's faced recently.  Ring, Amazon's smart doorbell, took some heat recently for its partnerships with local law enforcement. The company is sharing the footage it gets from its cameras with police departments. That's an idea that sounds like a good way to stop crime on paper, but may just lead to mass government surveillance of private citizens. In conclusion Getting into the home was a fantastic move for Amazon. Now that it's happened, we all got to ask ourselves some questions. How close do we want our relationships with Big Tech companies to be? What kinds of regulations should we pass to protect our data? With people spending more time at home and more time with Alexa devices, it's becoming more important for us to figure out the answers. If you liked what you read, please sign up for our weekly newsletter. We send one email like this on tech and business every week. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sundayspecial.substack.com

Peter Mingils on Alexa Show and Amazon Skills and Leverage technology on Building Fortunes Radio

Transitioning with your customer in the digital realm before it’s too late – businesses, prepare for voice search by @vickiemaris #teachinspireconnect #agiledigitalbiz Agile Digital Business Episode 12 featuring news, references and commentary about the voice platform and voice search   From the Resources Handout prepared for a conference session talk in June 2019; revised for a talk in September 2019   2:56 Articles and blog posts on voice search Voice Search is Coming. Is Your Business Ready? How voice search will revolutionize your business – Article in Inc. https://www.inc.com/magazine/201906/amy-webb/voice-search-optimization-alexa-smart-speaker-retail-shopping.html 3:08 Why Tech Giants Are So Desperate to Provide Your Voice Assistant An HBR article by Bret Kinsella about why Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others are investing in voice technology. “Voice assistants represent the third UI and technology platform shift of the past three decades, following the web in the 1990s and smartphones about 10 years ago…The shift to voice doesn’t require any training. Users simply ‘speak’ as they do naturally.” 3:20 Voice Search Statistics, Facts and Trends 2019 for Online Marketers “Voice search and SEO is not the next big thing; it is today’s big thing.” In this blog post by Bradley Shaw, learn more about voice search predictions and data, from voice accuracy to audiobook data to uses of searches prior to a visit to a local business. https://seoexpertbrad.com/voice-search-statistics/ 3:35Hey Google, Alexa, Siri and Higher Ed Impact on how we deliver, search for and market higher education. An article in Higher Ed by Ray Schroeder, Dec. 12, 2018 https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/hey-google-alexa-siri-and-higher-ed 3:46 The holidays ushered in a smart speaker explosion starring Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant: Smart speaker sales grew 78 percent in 2018. Rani Molla wrote this blog post on Vox on Jan. 8, 2019 to review the statistics surrounding the explosive growth of smart speakers in the market.  https://www.vox.com/2019/1/8/18173696/amazon-alexa-google-assistant-smart-speaker-sales-npr 4:04  Foursquare wants to know how creepy you think its new “Hypertrending” feature is The above is the title of a blog post on 9To5Mac from March 10, 2019. It addresses the approach taken by the Foursquare app company to test how readers feel about the app’s ability to heat mat the locations of people at restaurants and other businesses in Austin, Texas. https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/10/foursquare-hypertrending-feature 4:17 Who’s listening when you talk to your Google Assistant? This is an article in Wired in July 2019 that covers the topic of “who is listening to your conversations” from your Google Home Assistant. Google has made a statement about its process of having contractors review .2 percent of the recorded conversations. They say the data is not associated with an individual user of the assistant when it is being reviewed. To read more: https://www.wired.com/story/whos-listening-talk-google-assistant/   Alexa FAQs For instructions about the commands to use when talking to Alexa on a Smart Speaker, and its many capabilities, visit this FAQ page in Amazon. https://amzn.to/2ZAnQFS To review your voice recordings in the Alexa app: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602040   Google Voice Search FAQs For instructions on how to manage your Google Voice and Audio Activity, visit the “Data and personalization” link in the left-hand navigation of your Google Account.   Books 4:27Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins by Mark W. Schaefer – I read this book in Spring 2019, and took copious notes. Mark was the closing keynote at Social Media Marketing World conference in 2019. I recommend that every marketer and every business leader who has a marketing leader reporting to them should read this book. We are in a different marketing environment today than even just a few years ago. Years of marketing experience in business (or academia) and old methods for buying and placing digital advertising, and ways of engaging with customers are causing customers to block ads and/or to seek education and entertainment that is ad-free. If you aren’t already changing your plans currently to align with the new marketing revolution, this book will cause you to re-think what you’ve been doing in your marketing efforts.   Podcast Episodes 6:27Book Marketing: Voice Search For Authors With Miral Sattar – The Creative Penn Podcast Joanna Penn, author and podcast host, interviews Miral Sattar about the steps you can take in 2019 to help voice-activated assistants find your book upon request. In this episode, they touch on a variety of subjects from updating meta data on your web pages so that the snippets are answering the questions that people are asking in their attempts to find your books, to the importance of the audiobook format, to the differences between on-screen searches that are typed in a search engine such as Google, to asking a voice-activated assistant for a result. 7:179 Ways That Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Disrupt Authors and the Publishing Industry You don’t have to be a book author to benefit from this episode of The Creative Penn Podcast. Joanna Penn tracks through a list she has created that indicates we’re on the cusp of disruptions for authors and the publishing industry. Penn runs a multi-six-figure business as an independent author and speaker. She is published in 86 countries. Her energy and enthusiasm about AI is contagious. The insights she shares as she outlines the ways that authors and the publishing industry could be effected can provide ideas for your own business plan for the future. 9:30 Understanding Voice Search and the Future of SEO For interesting insights in to how voice is changing the “search” industry and what we might need to be expecting as businesses of the future, take a listen to this episode of Skill Up podcast. This is another episode that I’ve played more than once so that I could take notes on my second time through. Epsiode 7: https://www.hubspot.com/podcasts/skill-up/s01/e07-voice-search-future-seo   10:08 Measuring Position Zero’s Impact on Your Business – Searchmetrics Podcast, Episode 7 This is a discussion on the difference between rich snippets and featured snippets. There is no process for submitting for featured snippets. Are you optimizing your content? Are you formatting your content in a way that it can answer a specific question? https://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/podcast-voices-of-search-rich-and-featured-snippets/   10:38 Businesses – Prepare for Voice Search – Agile Digital Business podcast You may have heard of voice search, or use of voice-activated assistants such as Alexa which is the assistant for the Amazon Echo smart speaker. There is also the Google Home Assistant or Microsoft’s Cortana, Apple’s Siri, and others. As people gravitate towards voice for search, it has brought about a marketing niche that is often referred to as voice search marketing. Voice has been referred to as the next big thing. The data is showing that it IS the big thing we need to be preparing for in business and marketing of our products and services. Vickie Maris, host of Agile Digital Business podcast, discusses trends and definitions related to “voice,” in Episode 10 of the show. Season 2 of the podcast is focused on voice and voice first searches, and how businesses can prepare for the platform. Find all episodes at the blog: https://vickiemaris2.libsyn.com 12:05 Voicebot.ai For a look at the research available about voice, and to learn more about the technical side of the platform, I highly recommend viewing the website and the white papers available from Bret Kinsella and the team at Voicebot. Bret is also the host of the Voicebot podcast. Take a listen to an episode and visit the website. You won’t regret it. https://voicebot.ai/author/bret/   12:44 Reminder about the homework assignment for taking steps to update your website for "voice." It is available for download at my Patreon account, https://patreon.com/vickiemaris     Sample of recent tweets around the hashtags: #voiceactivatedsearch and #voicesearch SEMrush - @SEMrush  - Sept. 10, 2019 #VoiceSearch started off as a hit-or-miss concept. It’s now a hugely popular way of helping us go about our daily lives. @himanshurauthan uncovers 7 strategies of how you can optimize your site to return more answers from voice searches.* Audeliss Search - @AudelissPeople – June 17, 2019   Voice-activated systems are a $49 billion market. Now @Google is using #AI to make #voice recognition work for #people with #disabilities: (link: https://buff.ly/2FaQjKr) buff.ly/2FaQjKr @Forbes #inclusion AIMC Biz Solutions @aimcbizolution – June 14, 2019  As of 2019, 20% of all Google searches are voice-activated – a number that’s expected to leap to 50% as early as 2020. Voice search is here to stay. It’s growing – and businesses who don’t embrace it now are going to be left scrambling in the very near future.   13:46Webinar Replays Podcasting in the Age of Voice Webinar – Aug. 26, 2019 Pragmatic and WIT Lingo hosted an webinar with several guests that provides interesting insights to the “voice” scene in Q3 2019. https://youtu.be/C2uY1dGRIZE 14:31Glossary of Terms  AI – Artificial Intelligence Sample tweet from @Capgemini (Intelligent Automation Platform) about AI: Explore how #AI based insights enable wealth and #AssetManagement firms to leverage the strengths of the advisors, uncover areas of improvement and promote best practices. 15:20CCPA – California Consumer Protection Act Starts Jan. 1, 2020 - https://ccpa.jebbit.com/ “By its terms, the CCPA protects the private information of California residents even when they’re outside the state. This means that, if you sell anything to or market anything to or gather any data on California residents, you’re subject to the CCPA’s provisions and need to be ready.” Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (guest post on the Grow blog by Mark Schaefer) 16:05 Flash Briefing – A Flash Briefing is a term related to Amazon Skills for Alexa-assisted devices. It’s a short (10 minutes or less) news update that Alexa can read or play. 16:25 GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation Enforced May 25, 2018 In statements on the EU GDPR website it says that the GDPR is “designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe and to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data, and reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy.” https://eugdpr.org/   16:57 Intent – The meaning of whatever a user has verbalized to a voice-activated assistant.   17:04 Machine Learning – It’s an offshoot of artificial intelligence. Machine learning makes assumptions that machines can learn from data. As patterns are determined, decisions get made with little or no human involvement. 17:18 Position Zero – The top search result in a screen-based, keyword search in a search engine such as Google. It’s above the ads; it’s above the snippets. It’s the position used in voice search. 17:35Screen Search – A screen search is the type of Internet searching that was previously thought of as traditional. It involves typing of questions, key words or phrases in a search engine such as Google or Bing. A method of typing and a screen are involved. The search results are displayed in multiples per page. 17:58SEM – Search engine marketing 18:02 SEO – Search engine optimization SERP – Search engine results page* 18:05 Skill (Amazon), Action (Google), Capsule (Bixby for Samsung) – Amazon calls these “voice-driven capabilities” that can run on their respective platforms. Google calls these Actions. For Bixby, they are capsules. Consider the Amazon Alexa Skill for an example. I’ve created an Alexa Skill for my podcast, Agile Digital Business, to make it easy for Amazon device users to ask Alexa to play my Flash Briefing for the podcast. The Alexa Skill can be found on search in the Amazon Skill store. If a user knows the name of the Skill they are looking for, they can request it of the assistant by saying, “Enable [name of Skill].” For the podcast, I set the Alexa Skill up with the blue print provided for a Flash Briefing. It saved me from having to code, and it enables a user to search in their Alexa app for the specific Skill to add to their Flash Briefing.* 19:05 Smart Speaker – A smart speaker is also known as a voice-activated assistant, and several other terms. Examples include the Echo by Amazon (assistant is Alexa) or the Home by Google. Sonic Branding – Phrases such as “tone of the copy,” “find your voice,” and “it should sound like our brand,” have a literal meaning in this era of voice search. Sonic branding is what your brand sounds like as it is responding, verbally, to your customers.* 19:22 Utterance – This is the term used to describe the vocalizations a user has with a voice-activated assistant. 19:31 Voice – Any interaction that allows you to control a computer program using natural speech. 19:40 Voice Commerce – Transactions for goods and services conducted via voice search and commands given to the assistant in the smart speaker. Users can connect their accounts such as Amazon. 19:55 Voice First – The phrase, voice first, refers to the first in a string of searches, starting with a voice search, that a user conducts. They may go to a screen search after getting an initial response from an assistant. 20:11 Voice Search – A voice search is a question asked by a person talking to their digital assistant (voice-activated speaker or voice-activated assistant) such as Siri or Alexa. The assistant uses meta data to return one result that best aligns with the question that was asked. 20:46 Voice User Interface (VUI) – This is an interface that allows a person using voice for search to interact with a device when there isn’t a screen involved. 21:00 BIO – Vickie Maris Voice first, voice platforms and preparing content so that it is more discoverable in voice search are topics that have the focus of Vickie Maris, author, speaker, digital marketer and idea coach. Vickie is the host and producer of Agile Digital Business. Season 2 is devoted to the fast-moving adoption of smart speakers and uses of voice-activated assistants in a variety of forms. Through her podcast and conference talks, she helps business owners and marketers plan their transition of content for improved discoverability in voice search. Vickie has also studied and taught social media marketing and engagement, and development of online learning experiences in scalable business models for executive education units. Her career spans over 30 years in industry and academia. At the university, she is responsible for the sales, marketing and evolution of non-degree programs for business people in leadership, supervision, and business analytics. She has also held roles in marketing and business development in the fields of agriculture and engineering at Purdue University where she led a team that developed and marketed online certifications in Lean Six Sigma and project management. The online courses attracted over 1,400 business professionals per year. Vickie has served as a communications director for a non-profit and as an account manager for an advertising and public relations firm. She holds her Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. Her degrees from Purdue include a B.S. degree in Agricultural Communications and MS Ed in Learning Design and Technology. Vickie is a published author and a recording artist. Her books, podcasts and music can be found in Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Apple Music, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Pandora and other digital locations. She and her co-writer/musician husband, Scott Greeson, reside on their farm with their llamas, Connemara pony, and cat, Frank. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  23:04 To find the resources that I mention in my conference sessions, search on #teachinspireconnect and/or #agiledigitalbiz. You’re invited to connect with me in LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/vickiemaris; emails = vmaris@nd.edu or vickiemaris@gmail.com   * Indicates a content reference that was added after this document was audio recorded as part of Episode 12 of Agile Digital Business podcast. If you’d prefer to listen to my recommendations about these resources, plus my added commentary, check out Episode 12 of the podcast. The episodes of the podcast are available here: https://vickiemaris2.libsyn.com

Peter Mingils explains Amazon Skills for Building Fortunes Radio & MLM Leads

MLM charity for the home based business industry and the introduction of Amazon Skills Alexa previews Peter Mingils. www.networkleads.com. Quality MLM Leads for Best Network Marketing Lead Generation NetworkLeads Peter Mingils owns PM Marketing Networkleads since 1998.  http://www.networkleads.com Peter Mingils has held executive positions in Direct Sales and Direct Sales Management for companies such as Electrolux vacuums and PF Collier Encyclopedia and Education Systems. He has held Board Positions at the DSWA (Direct Selling Women's Association) http://www.mydswa.org, the MLMIA (Multi Level marketing Inernational Association), The Social Network Association (SNA), and has been past Executive Director, Vice president and president of the DRA (Distributor Rights Association) and the ANMP (Association of Network Marketing Professionals). Peter Mingils also was guest lecturer for Dr Charles King at the University of Illinois @ Chicago at his network marketing certification course. Peter Mingils created PM marketing Network Leads, Building Fortunes Radio https://www.buildingfortunesradio.com, MLM News, MLM Charity http://www.mlm.charity nd Youmongus Ads http://www.youmongusads.com and Youmongus Ad Network to help in MLM Lead Generation and Network Marketing Leads Training for affiliates, social media and internet marketers.    find more on Building Fortunes Radio on Amazon's Alexa skills and on www.mlm.news  

MLMIA Tony Cannuli & Peter Mingils Building Fortunes Radio MLM Updates and Scam

Download Episode! In Episode 13 of the Voice for Voice, we'll be discussing the brand new Google Home Hub (Google's answer to the Amazon Show), Amazon's new Gadget Toolkit, Task Rabbit's new Alexa skill, and Amazon's new partnership with Ghetty Images. Congratulations Red Cross! You are our Skill of The Week. We try and donate to the hurricane Florence via Alexa. Finally, we'll put Google Home and Alexa head-to-head and ask them for local restaurants.

Although voice search is getting a bad rep in the industry due to the 'hype' it's definitely not something to ignore.  Nick Wilsdon, with 18 years experience and working for Vodafone, goes through numerous ways to make the most of the voice opportunities, from Amazon Skills and Google Actions to customer service, searching using voice and big data. Forget about 50% of people using voice search by 2020 and realise that by next year 30% of businesses will be using voice devices, skills and actions to compliment their user journey.    Show notes & SUBSCRIBE to newsletter. Email me: seowithmrsghost@gmail.com Tweet me: @MrsAlinaGhost If you like the show please rate, write a review and tell your friends and colleagues!

A lot of new technologies directly impact the CEDIA universe, and this podcast covers literally EVERYTHING the Tech Council has been mulling over in the last few months. It's a free-wheeling discussion that covers topics ranging from AI to AR to the latest developments in the labs at Amazon and Boston Dynamics. A ton of links are mentioned in this one (they all make sense after a listen): The CEDIA Size and Scope Survey: http://v2.decipherinc.com/survey/selfserve/20ec/180504?list=0&U=hkeller@cedia.org#? “Uninvited Guests” https://vimeo.com/128873380 “What's Next for Humanity: Automation, New Morality and a Global Useless Class” https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/world/europe/yuval-noah-harari-future-tech.html?referer= "The Future of Jobs" http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf Amazon Skills https://blueprints.amazon.com/ GoFundMe for Ella Whistler https://www.gofundme.com/ella-whistler Also, here's the text of that DVR issue Walt mentioned: “An Argentinian security researcher names Ezequiel Fernandez has published a powerful new tool that can easily extract plain text credentials for various DVR brands and grant attackers access to those systems, and inherently the video feeds they're supposed to record. The tool named getDVR_credentials is proof of concept for CVE-2018-9995, a vulnerability discovered by Fernandez at the start of April.”

Episode Summary: Episosde 135 is all about Amazon Alexa What is Amazon Alexa and how does it work? What can Alexa do? What are Amazon Skills & Flash Briefings? How do you get your podcast on Alexa devices Comments, Questions & Feedback: mike@mikemurphy.co

In this special episode, Teri announces the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing launch and invites Simon Marcus, CEO of Pippa.io, to discuss his company and the service used to host the Voice in Canada flash briefing.Voice in Canada Flash Briefing Launch!I am really excited to launch the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing! I wanted to create something on the Amazon Alexa platform that would be valuable to the the Alexa in Canada community and creating a flash briefing seemed like the perfect idea. The flash briefing is designed to be a series of daily short episodes, discussing tips and tricks, commands, skills, reviews, news, and deals.To thank you for being an early supporter of the flash briefing launch, I will be giving away a free Amazon Echo Dot to one lucky listener. Make sure to scroll to the bottom to see how you can enter to win the Echo Dot!Benefits of Flash BriefingsBenefits for the ListenersVery easy to listen to.Almost no friction to listening.Can multitask while consuming audio content.Can discover and learn about new topics very easily.Benefits for the ProducersHuge opportunity for Producers - there only approximately 200 flash briefings currently in Canada.Can discuss your passion/hobbies.Can serve your audience and promote your business.Welcome Simon Marcus!Simon Marcus is the CEO of Pippa.io, the podcast and flash briefing hosting service that I use to host my Alexa in Canada podcast and Voice in Canada flash briefing. Pippa.io has made it very easy to setup my flash briefing, particularly because there is no coding or programming required. Simon joins me on the podcast to discuss his service and how he and his team developed the flash briefing feature.List of resources mentioned in this episode:Voice in Canada Flash BriefingPippa.io (use the coupon 'alexaincanada' for a free month)Please leave a review of the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing on AmazonContest!Win a Brand New Echo Dot!Thank you so much for being here and listening to my very first flash briefing episodes. To express my appreciation I am holding a contest to award one of you awesome early listeners with a brand new Echo Dot!To enter the contest, follow these 3 simple steps:1. Leave an honest review of the flash briefing through your Alexa app or on the Amazon Skills store by clicking HERE!2. Take a screenshot of your review BEFORE you submit it. Once you have your screenshot, submit the review.3. Post the screenshot to your Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook account with these 3 hashtags:#amazonecho#amazonalexa#voiceincanadaBONUS: Get an extra entry for every extra social media channel that you post your screenshot to with those hashtags!I will choose one lucky winner at random on March 5th and I will announce the winner on the Alexa in Canada social media channels and notify the winner through his/her social media account!The Fine PrintContest is open for 2 weeks, from February 19, 2018, until 11:59pm on March 4, 2018.There will be one winner for this contest. Winner will be selected at random (using the Alexa random number generator command!!) and posted on the Alexa in Canada Social media channels, and announced on the Voice in Canada Flash Briefing, on March 6, 2018.Open to Canadian and US residents 21 years or older. Void where prohibited or restricted by Canadian or US law.Winner will have to answer a skill testing question.Contest is not associated in any way with Amazon.com Inc. Alexa in Canada and Voice in Canada are independent publications and have not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Amazon.com, Inc.Winner will receive one Echo Dot (approx retail value $69.99 CDN). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.