Now You Can Share Your Custom Alexa Blueprint Skills with Others
In April of this year Amazon introduced a new Alexa Skill Blueprint feature. It allowed Alexa users to create custom Alexa skills for personal use without coding. At the time of its launch, the Blueprint skills developed could only be enabled or used on the creator’s Amazon Alexa account. But as of today, that has changed. Amazon will now allow Blueprint skills to be shared with others through a variety of different communication channels, including text message, email, What’s App and social media, like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
The First “Viral” Alexa Skill?
The new sharing feature doesn’t let users publish to the public Alexa skill store, but one can see the benefits of sharing a Blueprint skill with others to increase engagement on both Alexa and of the Blueprint feature. Before the sharing feature, Blueprint skills could only be heard in the owner’s home. But if you take the time to create a skill and no one can hear it, does it really matter? Social media and the internet has taught us that people like to share their opinions and creations with others. Whether it’s a student creating a flashcards skill for a final exam with their classmates or a son creating a Dad Jokes skill using his dad’s cheesy humor, the ability to share their skills with others is an incentive to create.
This could also lead to the first “viral” Alexa skill, one that gains traction via social media and is rapidly enabled by other Alexa users. Viral hits have given social media platforms and others like YouTube millions of unique users. But the same phenomenon has yet to happen for voice apps. If voice is the future, it needs to go viral. The Alexa Blueprint sharing feature could be a way to achieve this.
Alexa Skill Blueprints Mean Everyone Can Have a Personal Alexa Skill with No Coding
