Who knew Amazon would become such a hardware company? Not I. Amazon’s latest piece of hardware is in the form of a personal assistant that looks like a bluetooth speaker. It is like a dedicated version of Apple’s “Siri” or Google’s “Now”. Amazon Echo can do tasks and answer questions like these –
- Play music by the Eagles
- Add toilet paper to my shopping list
- What is the weather tomorrow?
- Set an alarm for 9am
- How many ounces in a gallon?
- Wikipedia: Rodney Dangerfield
- Play my “happy music” playlist
- Add “mow the lawn” to my to-do list
- How do you spell “octopus”?
- When is Christmas?
You get the idea. So why would Amazon make such a gadget? The main reason is that Amazon wants you to shop with them without even realizing it. The shopping integration is a bit light today but rest assured it will grow. In Amazon’s perfect world they want to be ubiquitous. You want to buy something… just shout it out.
This is no different than Google monetizing things with advertising… hey these guys have to make money somehow. That doesn’t make me want the Amazon Echo any less. I think it is a pretty cool gadget. Currently the Amazon Echo is sold by “invite only” and is $199 ($99 for prime members).
Watch the Amazon Echo video after the break.
Another amazon copycat product. I’m quite tired of amazon’s constant hard sell. Siri and Cortana, now Alexa.
This is amazon’s way of spying on homeowners and getting them to buy only amazon.
If you simply search bing or Google for the next product you want to buy, you’ll find that amazon is usually the most expensive pricing. Dow Jones reports that amazon’s pricing is higher than the competition more than 70% of the time. EBay, best buy, bing Google all show better pricing than amazon.
Most vendors now offer free shipping so why pay amazon $99 for that privilege. Most vendors now even match pricing.
I save thousands of dollars a year on my internet purchases by searching before I buy and avoiding amazon.
When I see an amazon box on a doorstep, I chuckle because I know that the consumer grossly overpaid. That smiley face arrow is symbolic of Bezos laughing all the way to the bank at all the ignorant consumers who overpaid at his site.