I dunno, could be some value in the long tail there. Discoverability is the main problem with voice interfaces (aka the world's worst-documented CLI). Third-party skills are already the backbone of Alexa's value, but you have to discover and activate individual skills manually. Amazon needs to get better at general queries, which is hard.
It could be useful to allow people bid on specific kinds of general queries. "You can use our cleaning product for that" is a better answer than "Sorry, I don't know."
There's also some signalling here. It shows that someone is willing to bet money that they have what I want. This is similar to search engine ads.
Like with search engine ads, transparency & privacy are really important. I want to know when I'm receiving sponsored content. I want to know what information was used to decide to show me that content. Duck Duck Go gets this right. Podcasts that play special background music during ad breaks get this right.
Maybe Alexa needs a separate voice or tone for responses with sponsored content.
It could be useful to allow people bid on specific kinds of general queries. "You can use our cleaning product for that" is a better answer than "Sorry, I don't know."
There's also some signalling here. It shows that someone is willing to bet money that they have what I want. This is similar to search engine ads.
Like with search engine ads, transparency & privacy are really important. I want to know when I'm receiving sponsored content. I want to know what information was used to decide to show me that content. Duck Duck Go gets this right. Podcasts that play special background music during ad breaks get this right.
Maybe Alexa needs a separate voice or tone for responses with sponsored content.