BotCube

Have you seen today’s news? Voice is gonna be huge! And it’s the perfect timing to unveil something we’re working on. It’s called Storyline, and it’s a web-based platform that helps non-tech people create Alexa apps without coding. I truly believe in this community and I’m super excited to give you early access to it. You can sign up here, we’ll send demo access later this week: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/storyline Happy botting! ❤️

Amazon is on fire today! 5 new devices and a couple of huge partnerships announced. I’ve just collected all the info available right now to the article below. Go read it, I’ll add more latest info in real-time. https://medium.com/@MaximAbramchuk/amazon-new-alexa-powered-products-and-partnership-with-bmw-a6ebecb5a206

Amazon has just launched a new version of Echo Amazon introduced a second-generation version of the Echo today with a dedicated bass tweeter and a modified, shorter design. The new device looks to be about half the size of the original Echo, is cloth-covered, and goes on sale today for $99. The company is also selling a three-pack for the first time, offering multi-room audio for the price of $50 per device. Multi-room audio has been a major request of Echo users nearly since its inception. The introduction of audio that can stream to multiple devices simultaneously means that Echo now poses a direct competitive threat to Sonos. It will also offer a low-cost alternative to Apple’s forthcoming HomePod. https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/27/amazon-new-echo/

HubSpot acquired Motion.ai I know that I’m kinda late with this piece of news, but I still want to post it here. “We see this as the big evolution that’s happening in marketing automation,” HubSpot chief strategy officer Brad Coffey said. “What email is to marketing automation, we believe messaging is to bots and Motion.ai.” The Motion.ai platform can currently be used to create bots for Slack and Facebook Messenger, and for chat on websites. Motion.ai currently offers about a dozen templates for bots that do things like handle FAQs or surveys, but Coffey is particularly interested in improving the handoff between a bot and a human in conversations. That’s a very interesting case - kinda first acquisition of a bot building platform. More to come. https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/20/hubspot-acquires-motion-ai-to-launch-marketing-bot-platform/

Google is planning to release a new miniature version of its Google Home smart speaker. At $49, the speaker will compete directly with Amazon’s Echo Dot, which is also sold for about $50. It comes as no surprise, but price is the number one determinant of why consumers buy a smart speaker. Like the Echo Dot, the speaker will be plugged into the wall, rather than featuring rechargeable batteries. Smart and pretty expected move from Google 👍 Their only option with Google Home for 130$ was a pretty big barrier for most of the people in comparison with 49$ price for Echo Dot from Amazon. https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/19/google-home-mini-will-reportedly-sell-for-49/

Apple Homepod will be released in December 2017 So, Apple is improving Siri to be able to handle people’s requests via Homepod. With iOS 11 Siri has gained more than a dozen new features: 1. Syncs across devices 2. On-the-spot translation 3. Personal DJ 4. More expressive voice 5. More personal financial services 6. QR codes for payments and sharing social media accounts 7. Productivity apps and lists 8. Personalized suggestions 9. QuickType 10. AppleWatch with Siri That’s a really huge update, take a look at the full version notes here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/23/ios-11-everything-apple-added-to-siri/

Have you seen my yesterday's post about building a skill for Alexa? Yes, that 33 pages guide which takes 5 hours to go through. You can do that in 30 seconds without coding. Here’s a short teaser of something we’re working on right now.

I wrote a lot about voice. Let’s start building. Here’s an official guide from Brian Donohue that covers all steps of creating a bot for Amazon Alexa. In this masterpiece, Brian provides the slides with a bit of color so other Alexa enthusiasts would be able to build their own skills. The guide is 33-pages long (oh, man!) and featured with screenshots and useful links to code samples. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-AOkCqVOaygdf4K3a-nOPyu_YderyAcCgCqqgCAyd-U/edit P.S. How do you like my new Alexaman suit? :)

Hey bot makers, Who likes conferences? I mean, bot conferences? 🤖 I kicked some serious asses to get a 40% discount for ChatbotConf 2017 in Vienna (Oct 17) for our community. So if you'll have a chance to visit sunny Vienna in October, use the code below to grab the discount. IMPORTANT: it’s valid till Sep 24, so you have 4 days to make a decision. PROMO CODE: botfans2017 ❤️

PullString is closing their IDE😲 Really interesting and kinda shocking piece of news for you today, guys. One of the most successful conversational platforms PullString has just announced that they’re closing their IDE for text-based applications from December 1, 2017. “The explosion of voice-first devices, combined with our history in voice-based computer conversation, has led us to devote all our product development efforts towards building the best authoring tools for voice-based skills and applications moving forward”. Yea, it’s really happening. Read more about that here: https://www.pullstring.com/blog/pullstrings-voice-first-future