A Summary of Amazon Echo Articles

After the complete failure that was Amazon Fire phone, the expectation for an Amazon-issued consumer electronics device is very low. Since its announcement in November 2014 (first limited, then wider sales began in June 2015), Amazon Echo is almost 1.5 years old. Given the recent surge of media coverage and positive comment on Amazon Echo, it may worth the while to build a summary of Amazon Echo articles for future reference. Hopefully this will provide value insights into voice-based computer interface, AI, internet of things (IoT), and platform competition (Google vs. Apple vs. Amazon vs. more).

Amazon was unveiled in November 2014, at the time, this Bloomberg article quoted an insightful comment from Forrester, which touches on two issues that will have lasting impact on platform companies: 1) presence in the home and 2) value of Amazon Prime members

“Every major digital platform company from Google to Apple wants to put sensors in your home. Google has thermostats and cameras thanks to its acquisition of Nest and Dropcam, Apple has added HomeKit, a set of developer tools for building apps for the home. But Amazon is the first to put a persistent microphone interface in your home, a listening and learning service that is ready to hear your every command. Sure, it doubles as a connected speaker and some people will end up buying it for that, but the Echo will only achieve its real purpose when you start asking it questions, having it complete tasks for you — especially shopping tasks — just the way Apple hopes its users will interact with Apple Watch.”

He added, “The risk for Amazon is that [the Echo] may end up being too early, setting the table for a party that consumers aren’t ready to join. But there’s no better way to find that out than to try; Amazon’s limited rollout of Echo to its Prime users is exactly the right way to try.”

The latest addition to the Amazon Echo praise comes from Bezos-invested Business Insider, a not so insightful piece, but with interesting details nonetheless. The "Wizard of Oz" testing seems interesting, I wonder how that compares to the way Apple and Google train their voice assistant.

Echo’s resounding success seems to have surprised even people internally. Amazon's Limp said the team realized within minutes of taking pre-orders that it picked way too low a number for initial estimates. One of the early employees said Echo hit a million pre-orders in less than two weeks, a far better pace than the iPhone, which took about 70 days to reach the same milestone.

Limp says the sales numbers aren’t a priority at this point. Rather, he’s more focused on making the product better and smarter. “At Amazon, we believe the next big platform is the voice,” Limp said at a recent press event for Echo. “What we’re trying to do is to build a computer in the cloud that’s completely controlled by your voice.”

CNET review: one of the best connected home products money can currently buy.
Mossberg review is a bit less enthusiastic: Did I make a mistake buying my Echo? I don’t necessarily think so. In our house, it has been pretty nice to have in the kitchen, if only for the on-demand, hands-free newscasts and music.
NYT review compares Amazon Echo to the first iPhone, the next must-have gadget.
The ZDNET reviewer said Amazon Echo is the most-used gadget in the home.
Engadget review is much less impressive with Amazon Echo, mostly because they view it narrowly as a speaker: "Echo is not a bad device; it's just one best suited for people already heavily invested in Amazon's ecosystem, making it ill-suited for anyone just looking for a speaker."
Echo may get comically confused when NPR talks about it over radio.
PCMag reviewer believes that being in the home gives Amazon Echo an advantage over Siri and Google Now because it feels less disembodied.
The other Steve at Apple also recently voiced his excitement for Amazon Echo, calling it "freedom" and "luxury".

IFTTT has an expanding recipe for Amazon Echo.

This Recode article defines Alexa as the invisible platform, which is most in-line with my view on Amazon Echo.

To Amazon’s credit, it recognizes the platform potential of Alexa and is actively encouraging other device makers to use Alexa in their own hardware designs and to create add-on skills. This could allow Amazon to do an end run around the existing ecosystem players, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, and place it at the forefront of voice-based computing.

Most visions of the future imagine technology that seamlessly blends into our lives, gives us immediate access to all the world’s information and helps make our lives easier. While the Amazon Echo family of devices may not completely fulfill all these requirements, it’s one of the clearest indicators of where personal technology is headed in the years to come.