XAPPMedia Creates Alexa Skills For 100+ Stations

XAPPmedia, the leader in interactive voice engagement, Tuesday announced it has published 119 custom Alexa skills for radio stations in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

XAPP’s development of Federated Media’s B100 Alexa skill in March 2017 represented the first radio station available directly to listeners on Amazon Echo. In less than six months, XAPP has brought another 118 radio stations to Amazon Alexa enabling listeners to instantly access their favorite stations by voice. All 119 stations were deployed on XAPPmedia’s interactive voice software platform that makes it easy launch, operate, maintain and update voice applications across multiple voice assistants.

“We are proud to be working with stations ranging from large radio groups like Scripps, Urban One, Bonneville and Federated Media to local operators such as Brooke Communications, All Pro Broadcasting, and Gabriel Broadcasting. XAPP was able to move so quickly on behalf of 119 radio stations because of the four years of investment into our SaaS solution. The XAPPmedia Platform is designed specifically to deliver voice interactive engagement between brands, media and consumers and ensure high quality of service. A voice strategy for radio is about more than just getting your signal live on Alexa. It is also about capabilities that enable you to serve listeners on multiple voice assistants simultaneously and ensure high availability performance over time. We look forward to enabling several hundred more stations to connect with listeners on the voice assistant platforms very soon,” said Pat Higbie, XAPPmedia CEO and co-founder.

“Federated Media was proud to be the first radio station with a custom Alexa skill and partnering with XAPP was a critically important decision. We are proud that so many of our peers have decided to bring radio back into the home. The Federated team has seen how devices like Amazon Echo are going to be a big part of radio’s future and companies like XAPP area providing a real service to the industry,” said James Derby, chief strategy officer at Federated Media.

“Gartner forecasts that 75 percent of US households will have at least one Alexa-like device by 2020, and numerous studies show that audio entertainment is one of the top two use cases for the devices. Radio must be available on Alexa today while consumers are forming their listening habits. It was critical to have a skilled partner like XAPP help us launch our radio stations on Alexa. We looked at all of the leading technology companies in the market, but XAPPmedia’s technology, years of experience and credentials with Amazon, Google and Microsoft were important factors in the decision,” said Rob McCracken, a director in the digital solutions group for Scripps.

You can learn more about radio and Amazon Alexa here: https://xappmedia.com/voice-radio/.