Amazon Alexa Skills Triple To Over 3,000 In Just Three Months
Amazon Alexa has been gaining new skills at a dizzying pace. Back in early June, Alexa had amassed 1,000 skills, and by the end of that month the number had already jumped to 1,400. Today, that number stands at over 3,000. That’s a remarkable feat for the humble, voice-activated speaker that first launched back in late 2014.
The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) and Alexa Voice Service (AVS) has been around for roughly a year, and developers have wasted no time plugging their apps and services into Alexa and the Echo family of products. That was on display today with announcements of a dozen new Alexa skills including entries from Bloomberg, Food Network, KAYAK, and GE Appliances (for voice-activated appliances).
But perhaps our favorite new addition is integration with Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football. You can now check on the status of your Fantasy Football league including upcoming matchups, rankings and player points using just your voice. Hey, we’ll take anything we can get when it comes to getting an edge on friends, family and coworkers during NFL season.
“We’re thrilled to announce that developers have launched over 3,000 skills on Alexa-enabled devices such as the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot,” said Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. “When we launched the Alexa Skills Kit over a year ago, our goal was to enable developers to build compelling voice experiences for Alexa customers. The response from both developers and customers has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re excited for what’s ahead.”
Earlier today, Amazon spilled the beans on an upcoming Alexa-related product announcement. The company’s marketing team mistakenly posted to Twitter that a new variant of the Echo Dot would soon arrive with a $49.99 price tag — $40 less than the outgoing model. The Echo Dot has been sold out on Amazon’s website for the past two months, but this early leak should mean that the inventory shortage won’t last for too much longer.
