Shelley Seale is a journalist, content creator, award-winning writer, author, publication designer, editor and communications professional. She can be reached at www.shelleyseale.com. and Twitter
What’s Happening:
As voice technologies grow in popularity, they are likely to move beyond home and personal use to become embedded in every aspect of consumers’ lives. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism took a look and how these devices are currently being used, and their potential for news in the future.
Why it Matters:
Voice-activated speakers powered by intelligent assistants, such as Amazon, Alexa and Google Assistant, are growing faster than the smartphone and tablets at a similar stage. They are projected to move beyond home use to become used in every aspect of our lives in much the same way smartphones did, based on the predictors.
The Reuters report by Senior Research Associate Nic Newman is based on nationally representative surveys in the United Kingdom and United States, as well as interviews and focus groups with smart speaker users and eighteen leading publishers such as the New York Times and the BBC. The key findings of the report include:
- The use of voice-activated speakers has roughly doubled in the past year in the US, UK and Germany.
- Smart speakers are replacing remote control devices, in a bid to cut digital clutter.
- Smart speakers are most popular with 35-44 year olds’, but also with older age groups.
- Amazon’s Alexa devices dominate both the US and UK markets, clearly outselling Google Home and Apple Homepod speakers.
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