This is a summary from a new section in the Second Edition of "How To Program: Amazon Echo".

The Echo Vs Smartphone

Alexa development has parallels with Smartphone app development. The Echo is like a smartphone, albeit a tethered one. Both types of devices are connected and capable of sending information to other devices or services. Alexa Skills are much like applications. The most successful smartphone apps are part of larger systems, supported offline with additional products or services. Alexa skills are trending in this direction as well.

As useful as this analogy is in understanding the possibilities, but there are a number of differences to consider so as to avoid taking a wrong turn. For example, The Echo does not work like mobile, whose main benefit is that you have the mobile device with you wherever you go. A typical Echo scenario starts with “I’m sitting at home on my couch, and I want to…” Your users can use the skill while they keep cooking dinner, knitting, playing an instrument, fixing an appliance, etc. The Echo has a reduced scope, which is an important point to consider when coming up with monetization strategies.

An Alexa skill also has a very narrow band of interaction with a user. The Echo can hear what users say when they invoke it. It can talk back to them, and it can display a plain text card on a companion device if they are using it. This functional repertoire has much less scope for many of the more traditional methods of monetization of Smartphones.

On the plus side, the Echo doesn’t have to work on its own like a Smartphone normally does. With the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), an Echo can work in concert with other voice detection devices. Users who have installed passive voice detection equipment throughout their homes could potentially use Alexa to control everything from everywhere. And since skills can tap into the AVS, they can be the gateway to home automation.

There is one more important comparison to make with Smartphone apps. The user base for the Echo is orders of magnitude smaller than the user base for any Smartphone. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands rather than the hundreds of millions. Smartphones can use low-engagement monetization strategies work because a small percentage of a large user base is still significant. Those strategies will not work for The Echo until uptake is considerably higher.