One of the great things about Amazon’s Alexa is that it is open to third-party developers, which means that Amazon won’t have to work so hard to increase its functionality as this can be done by third-party developers, who have in the past come up with a variety of skills that Alexa can use, like hailing you an Uber, order a pizza, and so on.Now it looks like Amazon wants to step things up a bit by encouraging more developers to come on board, or to encourage existing ones to create more skills because according to a report from TechCrunch, Amazon is apparently starting to pay more developers for creating Alexa skills that are popular.
This initiative is confirmed on Amazon’s website which reads, “Every month, developers can earn money for eligible skills that drive some of the highest customer engagement. We’ve expanded the eligible skill categories beyond Games, Trivia & Accessories to also include: Education & Reference; Food & Drink; Health & Fitness; Lifestyle; Music & Audio; and Productivity.”
Unfortunately there is no mention of the specifics like how much one can get paid, what kind of rates Amazon is using, or any kind of metrics for that matter. According to Amazon, payment is based on customer engagement, which once again seems rather vague as Amazon is basing this on various factors, so it seems that for now developers will just have to create skills and hope that they get chosen.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Alexa and Amazon.