The Investors Podcast Taps XAPPmedia to Create the First Alexa Skill with Episode Discovery Scan Feature
Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) December 13, 2016 -- XAPPmedia, the leader in interactive voice engagement, announced the availability of We Study Billionaires, a new Amazon Alexa Skill for The Investors Podcast that is co-hosted by Preston Pysh (@PrestonPysh) and Stig Brodersen (@stig_brodersen). The same podcast content that listeners can find through their favorite podcasting apps is now accessible on Alexa enabled devices such as the Amazon Echo. This is the first podcast to allow users to browse audio content with an audio title Scan feature that enables quick content discovery and selection using only voice interaction. Podcast discovery is a challenge because the content is long form and you typically need to discover what you want to listen to before you start to listen. The Scan feature improves podcast discovery – it enables listeners to discover podcast content while they’re listening.
“The Investors Podcast is the leading stock investing business podcast. It was a natural fit to make the content available for Alexa users. A few podcasters have built Flash Briefings for Alexa, but the user experience is very limited and only suitable for short news content. We wanted to create an innovative user experience for both loyal fans and new listeners that was suitable for consuming long-form audio content and leveraged Amazon’s AudioPlayer interface. The Scan feature enables users to hear a short description of the episode and listen on demand by simply saying, ‘play next.’ The Resume feature makes it easy for listeners to pick back up where they left off previously. Now, with XAPP’s Scan and Resume features, podcasters can turn their entire library into an Alexa Skill. The We Study Billionaires Alexa skill is available today and is the number one stock investing podcast on Alexa,” said XAPPmedia CTO John Kelvie.
Preston Pysh, Co-Host of The Investors Podcast and the new We Study Billionaires Alexa skill commented, “There’s a major shift that’s about to take place with AI hardware and software that hasn’t happened in the last decade. As companies like Amazon and others advanced to make a voice activated interface more user friendly and capable, applications are becoming more voice oriented. I really had no idea what to expect when we started with XAPPmedia. I was thinking that the project was going to be more developmental in nature and it was actually quite different than that. Within the first status update, John already had a working prototype of the system and he was streaming the syndication feed from our show. We are excited to be the first investing podcast with a skill for Alexa.”
What is Amazon Alexa and How to Access the We Study Billionaires Skill
Amazon Alexa is the voice assistant behind the popular Amazon Echo. An Alexa skill is an interactive voice experience that a 3rd party can develop to make Alexa smart about their brand and content so consumers can connect with them spontaneously by voice. Media organizations, consumer brands, information services, home automation vendors, game developers and now podcasters are building skills to serve the millions of Amazon Alexa users. You can access We Study Billionaires by saying to any Alexa-supported device, “Alexa, enable We Study Billionaires.”
About The Investors Podcast (We Study Billionaires)
The Investors Podcast is the #1 stock investing podcast worldwide over 9 million downloads. It has ranked #1 for stock investing on iTunes (2016), Google (2016), CNBC (2016) and Business Insider (2015). The podcast is built around a single premise: studying billionaires. We talk about the books they read and we interview the people they like to interact with. The Investors Podcast is co-hosted by Preston Pysh and Stig Brodersen. They have also authored books like The Warren Buffet Accounting Book.
About XAPPmedia
XAPPmedia™ is the leader in delivering interactive voice experiences and is the first company to Give Brands a Voice™ enabling instant, voice-activated connections with consumers through mobile audio apps and voice assistants. XAPP’s tools can be applied to mobile content delivery, mobile advertising, voice recognition and voice experience development and maintenance. XAPPmedia was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Washington, DC.
Bret Kinsella, XAPPmedia, https://xappmedia.com, +1 2025560228, [email protected]
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