An example of an interesting Amazon Echo skill is “Seinfeld Fan Trivia”. This asks 5 multiple choice questions about the series. If you have watchers/subscribers it is an example of engaging your audience outside your medium.

Also, I recently got the Amazon Echo Dot. It is a smaller version (smaller speaker) of the Amazon Echo. The Echo is a device that listens for it’s name and a question or statement and when it hears it will respond to you. Examples are things ranging from “Alexa, what’s the weather forecast?” to “Alexa, how old is Cher?”.

We’ve been pretty impressed with our Echo so I wanted to try the Dot to see how it sounds. I would probably just advise using the Echo over the Dot in general just because of the better audio quality but the Dot can also use external speakers which works well too. You might get the Dot if you have a good sound system and don’t need the Echo built-in speaker.

I’m still trying out different configurations for it. One advantage that is apparent so far is that once a BlueTooth speaker has been paired with it you can use it by saying “Alexa, connect to my xxx”. I’m gong to try a couple of different speakers today to see how easily it switches. My biggest comment is that the Dot speaker is definitely “tinny” sounding. I have tried cabled speakers and 1 BT (Bose SoundLink) so far.

There is no lack of opportunity with this device/service and the voice interface in general.