Overview
Alexa, the voice service that powers the Amazon Echo, provides capabilities, known as Skills, that enable customers to interact with devices using voice.
Implementation
Other Information and Best Practices
- Set up individual RSS Feeds (requires HTTPS - Secured Protocol) for content (e.g. News, Sports, Breaking, Top Headlines, etc.).
- The order of the content (assets) you select and submit from your site via the RSS Feed(s), determines the order the devices announce your content.
- List your Feeds in the Alexa Skill Description.
- Titles should be brief, clear, and concise.
- Avoid advertisements, promo's, plugs, etc.
- Breaking News last :60 minutes on Echo and Alexa devices.
- Alexa and Echo devices pull the text from the Summary portion of your article (no mark-up text). If a Summary is left blank, the devices will pull from the Body Copy. The Summary is the best way to control the quality of content from your site, ensuring its not interrupted or cutoff.
- There is a 4,500 Character Limitation for these devices. A one paragraph summary is recommended with simple punctuation used (e.g. a comma or period).
NOTE: If one paragraph isn't enough to convey the entire story you can add the URL parameter &minw=200 to use the first 200 words. You can choose the minimum number of words you want to use as a summary.
- Text-to-Speech recommendation is one to two minutes.
- The User Experience is controlled by how the device is set up by the User. As a site, you control the quality and type of content provided via your Feeds.
Online Resources
