{"id":338916,"date":"2017-04-21T04:27:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T20:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1479409"},"modified":"2017-04-21T04:27:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T20:27:43","slug":"amazons-new-alexa-developer-policy-now-bans-all-ads-except-in-music-and-flash-briefings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/amazons-new-alexa-developer-policy-now-bans-all-ads-except-in-music-and-flash-briefings\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon\u2019s new Alexa developer policy now bans all ads except in music and flash briefings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon has quietly introduced a change to its Alexa Skills Developer<\/a> agreement aimed at further restricting advertisements within Alexa\u2019s voice apps, which it calls \u201cskills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, the developer agreement stated that it would ban apps that used the Alexa app home cards<\/a> \u2013 the cards that appear in the Alexa companion app \u2013 that can describe the skill in question or enhance the voice interaction with details provided as text-based content. Now the agreement simply bans skills that contain \u201cany advertising for third-party products or services,\u201d according to the updated documentation.<\/p>\n

Amazon carves out an exception for streaming music, radio and flash briefing apps (news briefings) where advertisements are not the core functionality of the skill. But other than that, ads are now largely banned on the Alexa platform.<\/p>\n

The change has irked some\u00a0Alexa developers who already feel that it\u2019s too difficult to make money from their Alexa skills, as is. Others, however, are confident that Amazon will eventually introduce its own monetization platform \u2013 perhaps through in-app purchases, paid skills, or ways to leverage\u00a0Amazon Pay<\/a> (its payments platform) in their skills.<\/p>\n

While Amazon is\u00a0following an ambitious path toward making its voice computing technology powerful and ubiquitous \u2013 including by opening access to Echo speaker technology<\/a>, Alexa\u2019s voice technology<\/a>, and the underlying technologies that power Alexa\u2019s abilities to understand language<\/a> \u2013 it has yet to fully address the needs of developers who want to build their own app businesses on top of its voice computing platform.<\/p>\n

In fact, this problem is so often discussed that there\u2019s an inside joke in\u00a0an active Slack community for Alexa developers that involves the posting of a snow cone emoji. The joke is that it\u2019s easier to make more money selling snow cones than building Alexa skills. The emoji is posted in response complaints, including, most recently, the change to Amazon\u2019s Alexa Developer agreement.<\/p>\n

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According to posters in this community, the agreement was updated on Tuesday. We\u2019ve asked Amazon to confirm, but the company\u00a0declined to comment.<\/p>\n

However, you can compare the two versions of the agreement by looking at the one live on Amazon.com, and a version cached by the Internet Archive\u2019s Wayback machine<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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In the former, there\u2019s only a one-line description of what sort of advertising is banned \u2013 those using home cards \u2013 while the newer one broadens that to include \u201cany advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was initially some speculation that the change was made in response to technology being developed by VoiceLabs, which has been testing an advertising platform aimed at Alexa Skill developers involving \u201cSponsored Messages,\u201d\u00a0as referenced here in a blog post<\/a>. \u00a0These will allow developers to insert brief ads, similar to those in podcasts, but which are interactive.<\/p>\n

VoiceLabs\u2019 system\u00a0allows partner advertisers to connect with consumers who use\u00a0Alexa\u2019s voice-powered apps. But because any one Skill wouldn\u2019t have enough users to capture that ad spend, VoiceLabs\u2019 system instead combines users\u00a0across Skills. This aggregated audience is then sizable enough to gain advertisers\u2019 attention and interest.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0VoiceLabs\u2019 co-founder and CEO Adam Marchick disputes the idea it\u2019s\u00a0his system that\u2019s at all related to the policy change. He says that Amazon has known about Sponsored Messages since January, and has been collaborating with VoiceLabs on its development.<\/p>\n

In addition, of the 1,300 developers on VoiceLabs\u2019 platform, the majority of those planning to use Sponsored Messages are creating flash briefings, which are not affected by the new policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon has a really hard job,\u201d says Marchick. \u201cConsumer adoption is growing really quickly for this device, and developers are excited to innovate.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he did caution that advertising has to be carefully considered as adoption grows. \u201cThey have a huge hit on their hands, and they want to be considerate of the consumer. To date, we\u2019ve seen some of the advertising, and it\u2019s not been considerate,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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