Blog: Alexa

Less than a week into the new decade and we already have the first indications that the streaming rulebook continues to be rewritten faster than the ink can dry on its last entry. Three separate articles, on the surface unrelated, when stitched together create the outline of a new streaming narrative that while firmly rooted in recent developments represents an entirely new chapter for the music industry: Ellie Goulding’s ‘River’ was the UK Christmas number one despite being an Amazon exclusive Jimmy Iovine claims Drake and Billie Eilish each have more streams than the entirety of the 1980s UK streaming revenue growth slowed, adding £191 million in 2019 compared to £210 million in 2019 Fusing consumption and retail Streaming’s impact is both commercial and cultural, in large part because it fuses what used to be retail and radio.

In last week’s Take Five I highlighted a Vox story which reported that over the last year the number of companies using terms like ‘tech’ or technology’ in their documents is down 12%. This is an early indicator of a much more fundamental concept – we may have already reached peak in the tech sector, the business sector that has driven the fourth industrial revolution.

Cast your mind back to streaming yesteryear, back when the format was yet to establish itself as the industry’s dominant source of revenue. Spotify pushed heavily for a free tier, citing its impressive conversion rates to paid subscriptions.

Sonos, granddaddy of the connected home audio marketplace, is now 15 years old. Sonos was a pioneer that was so far ahead of its time, it inadvertently found itself as one of the key early drivers of streaming subscriptions.

Streaming has driven such a revenue renaissance within the major record labels that the financial markets are now falling over themselves to work out where they can invest in the market, and indeed whether they should.

Second-order effects are rarely considered when new technologies come to the fore and reach critical mass. For example, the realisation of smartphones, the emergence of Apple's app store and the ubiquity of Wi-Fi and cheap, effective data in mature digital markets means a service such as WhatsApp makes more immediate sense, but Uber and Snapchat are less obvious.

In the hours following the announcement of Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of American supermarket chain Whole Foods, much of the immediate attention is currently focused on how the e-commerce giant will disrupt the food and grocery brick-and-mortar retail experience.

Google have released a new Google Payment API with specific emphasis on voice capabilities. The service will allow Google Home device users to pay in-app or online with any verified credit or debit card saved to their Google account via products such as Google Play, Chrome and YouTube.

Withthe success of Prime and the Echo, Amazon at present is experiencing the same halo effect that graced Microsoft in the 90s and Apple in the 00s. Withtheir finger on the pulse of everything from entertainment (Manchester by-the-sea, American Gods) to drones, there appears to be a consensus that save for anti-trust legislation, Amazon will become the first $1 Trillion market cap company.

Amazon is doubling down on Echo’s success (60% growth rate since November 2016) by just announcing the Echo Show. A visual iteration on the Echo, the device is priced at $229.99 and will initially only be released in the US, mimicking the rollout strategy of the original Echo device last year.

Swiftly following the success of the Echo, Amazon have announced their Lex platform is now open to 3rd party developers, allowing them to create and monetise chat-bots, further embellishing the device.

In the tradition of effective storytelling, the technology industry’s romantic narrative often involves two basic troupes: a garage and a dream. This alluring chronology is so embedded in start-up folklore that it permeates the foundation myths of everyone from Apple to Google, and it actually pre-dates Silicon Valley.

Last year was undoubtedly the year of video. As CES kicked off to shine more light on where the efforts of the industry are headed this year, it is becoming increasingly clear just how much voice command is emphasised, particularly as the battle for connected homes and cars heats up.