Two Voice Devs

You've designed the conversations, you've written the code, everything is tested. You can release your skill or action now publicly, right? Well, not quite yet. First you have to get past the review and certification teams at Amazon and Google. Mark and Allen discuss this final step in the development process and what it means for you. Do you have any good tales about the process? Any nightmare stories?

This week, Roger Kibbe guest hosts, along with Mark, to discuss what he does as a Developer Evangelist for Samsung's Bixby, how Bixby is different, what he does with the Open Voice Network, and his take on the voice industry in general.

Experience helps you to not make mistakes. But how do you get experience? By making mistakes. And between Mark and Allen, they've made plenty of mistakes in years of programming. They'll talk about some of the lessons they've learned along the way, particularly for voice. What lessons have you learned that you want to share?

Eventually you're going to want to monetize your Google action and one way to do that is through in-Action transactions. Mark and Allen go over the different kinds of Digital Goods Transactions available and how to use them. (If you're looking for how to do this on Alexa - check out the previous episode.)    For more about digital goods transactions, see https://developers.google.com/assistant/transactions

Eventually you're going to want to monetize your Alexa skill, and one way to do that is through In Skill Purchases (ISP). Mark and Allen go over the different kinds of ISPs available and how to use them. (If you're looking for how to do this on the Google Assistant - tune in next week.)  

For more about In Skill Purchases, see https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/in-skill-purchase/isp-overview.html

Now that Google I/O has been completed, Allen and Mark discuss what new features have been delivered for the Google Assistant... and what has just been promised. What were your favorite moments from Google I/O, and what new features are you most looking forward to?

This week is Google I/O, where Google regularly takes the opportunity to release what's new and coming "soon" in the Google ecosystem. Mark and Allen take the opportunity to review what new features have recently come out for developers of Alexa skills and actions for the Google Assistant. What new features of these platforms have you been building for?

In episode 38, we talked about the general process about handling users when they start our skill or action. But what do we do in the specific case of the new user? How can we onboard them? Allen and Mark talk about what our conversation designers may be asking of us, and the data structures and tools we can use to implement their ideas.

Do your skills or actions work on the first try? Of course they don't! That's why we have to find good methods of tracking down and squishing those bugs. Mark and Allen discuss some of their tips for figuring out what is wrong when, on those rare occasions, things don't quite work as expected.

In a lot of ways, #VoiceFirst development is like any other programming. But not quite. There are always some good things we need to remember as we build and test our skills, actions, and capsules. Mark and Allen talk about the best practices they follow when starting a project. Do you have any tips and tricks you make sure you follow to make your development life easier?