Back in 2018, Amazon announced Alexa Skill Blueprints to build experiences into Alexa that are personalized to you and help make Alexa even more useful around your home. Using a set of easy-to-use Alexa Skill Blueprints templates anyone can create customized experiences for Alexa within minutes just by filling in the blanks. Now, Amazon has announced that they will enable anyone to publish their skills created using Alexa Skill Blueprints to the India Alexa Skills Store.
Skills are like apps for Alexa, using Skill Blueprints, one can use over 30 templates to create your own personal Alexa skill in minutes. Choose from a variety of categories including Fun & Games, Learning and Knowledge, At Home and Storyteller to create custom games, unique stories, or household lists.
Four new Skill Blueprints built specifically for content creators, bloggers, and organizations:
- Content creators will be able to use the new Flash Briefing blueprint to publish and share their latest updates on the Alexa Skills Store. Users will be able to add the content into their Flash Briefing just as they do for other Flash Briefing skills.
- Bloggers who use WordPress can deliver their posts as audio through Alexa with the Blog blueprint.
- Universities and religious organizations can use the new University and Spiritual Talks blueprints to make their live and recorded audio content accessible on Alexa-enabled devices.
Further, anyone can use the existing blueprints to publish skills for a variety of customizable scenarios, for example
- Budding authors can share their talents for the written word and publish their short stories or poems with the Storytelling blueprints such as Fable or Fairy Tale.
- Tutors can use the Trivia blueprint to help students use Alexa to help them learn new concepts when playing a game.
- History buffs can use the Quiz blueprints to create a fun and interesting quiz for their community.
“With today’s announcement, we are excited to launch four new Skill Blueprints built specifically for content creators, bloggers, and organizations, so they can reach anyone with an Alexa-enabled device – with no coding required”, says Dilip R.S., Country Manager for Alexa Skills, Amazon India. “Being able to publish a blueprint skill allows customers and content creators to share their passions, creativity, and interests with anyone even though they may not have a technical background”.
Skill Blueprints that are submitted for publishing on the Alexa Skills Store need to abide by our Content Guidelines, not contain material that is inappropriate for customers of Alexa and must go through the skill certification review. How many of you own Alexa enabled devices? Drop a comment and let us know, follow us on Twitter for more news and updates.
