Tag Archives: DevOps

The German Government is temporarily reducing value added tax (VAT) from July 1^st until December 31^st this year. The German tax rates will change from 19% to 16% (regular VAT rate) and from 7% to 5% (reduced VAT rate). It is the aim of the German Government that retailers pass on the reduction to customers through lowered prices.

While this is not a required action for your published apps on the Amazon Appstore, you may choose to update the List Price of your apps and in-app purchasable items sold in Germany for the duration of the VAT reduction.

Before you apply any changes to the List Price for your apps and n-app purchasable items sold in Germany, please take note of the following:

• Changing the List Price for the “Amazon.de” Marketplace will also impact the calculation of Royalties for apps sold in Austria (AT), where at the moment there is no VAT reduction.
• If you plan to update the List Price for a subscription, please make sure to carefully read the documentation on how to Update Subscription Price on the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal. The system behavior for a given subscriber depends on the price that the subscriber is currently paying.

If you would like to lower the list price for your apps, you can follow the steps below on the Amazon Developer Console:

• Go to “App List” and select the app where you would like to lower the list price
• For Paid Apps, go to “Availability and Pricing” and edit pricing for the “Amazon.de” marketplace
• For editing In-App Items, go to the “In-App Items” tab. For each In-App Item, edit the list pricing for the “Amazon.de” marketplace.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Amazon Appstore Developer Support.

Amazon Appstore Team

We’re excited to announce the next generation (2020) Toshiba 4K UHD and Insignia 4K UHD Fire TV Edition smart TVs, available in the United States and Canada. Both TVs have the Fire TV experience built-in, a wide selection of screen sizes, and a newly designed Voice Remote with Amazon Alexa. Available now exclusively at Best Buy retail stores, BestBuy.com, and Amazon.com.

Fire TV Keeps Getting Better

Reach new customers every day as the Fire TV device portfolio continues to expand providing more device options to satisfy the needs of customers. Today, Fire TV has over 40M+ active users that can watch over 500,000 streaming movies and TV episodes with access to tens of thousands of channels, apps, and Alexa skills. Fire TV devices is always getting smarter with new Alexa skills, feature improvements, and automatic over-the-air software updates supported by Amazon.

New Remote

The new Voice Remote with Alexa makes it easy to browse and discover new content—customers can use voice commands to watch live TV, search for titles, play music, switch inputs, control compatible smart home devices, and more. The new remote comes with the addition of up/down channel buttons, a Settings button, and a Recents button enabling a customer to quickly go back to recently watched content. Voice control is getting smarter all the time – you can voice-enable your app and content to help customers quickly find and launch your media.

Specifications

The Toshiba and Insignia smart TVs deliver a true-to-life 4K Ultra HD picture quality with over 8 million pixels for stunning clarity, deep contrast, and vivid colors with ultra-smooth streaming of HD/4K UHD video at up to 60 fps. Screen sizes range from 43-inches to 65-inches, with the higher end Toshiba model supporting DTS Virtual-X surround sound not seen in prior models.

Built for speed and performance, the TVs are powered by a quad-core CPU/Multi-core GPU for instant search results and fast and fluid responsiveness. Integrate your media catalog with Fire TV so your content can be included in universal browse and search results. The TVs connect easily with dual-band Wi-Fi and feature three HDMI inputs, and multiple input/output options. All models are running Fire OS 7, based on Android 9.

Check out our technical documentation page to learn more about the new specs and features included.

Other helpful resources:

Fire TV Overview
Register for a free Amazon Developer account
Submit your app

（※注: 本記事はこちらの投稿を日本語に翻訳したものです）

Amazonは、家族全員の好みに合わせて選べる次世代「Fire HD 8タブレット」3機種を発表しました。処理速度がさらに向上し、日々のストリーミング再生をより快適に行えるラインナップとなっています。

Amazonデバイス担当バイスプレジデントのケビン・キース（Kevin Keith）は、次のように述べています。「新世代のFire HD 8タブレットは、魅力あるコンテンツの提供に加えて、大容量のストレージや長時間持続するバッテリーを採用するなど、家族みんながそれぞれのニーズに合わせて選べるよう開発したタブレットです。また、お求めになりやすい価格設定も大きな魅力です。」

新世代のFire HD 8は、明るくなった8インチHDディスプレイ、容量が2倍になったストレージ（32GBまたは64GB、microSDカードにより最大1TBまで拡張可能）、2GBのRAMを搭載。新しい2.0GHzのクアッドコアプロセッサにより、前世代機と比べて最大30%の高速化を実現しています。簡単に充電ができるUSB-Cが採用され、バッテリー持続時間は最大12時間。映画やTV番組、音楽、電子書籍、雑誌、ゲーム、知育・エンターテインメント系アプリなどを始めとした、数千万のコンテンツをお楽しみいただけます。価格は9,980円（税込）から。

Fire HD 8 Plusは、Fire HD 8の性能をさらに向上させたデバイスです。3GBのRAMを搭載し、スムーズなワイヤレス充電や付属の9W充電アダプターによる高速充電に対応。さらに今なら期間限定で、Kindle Unlimitedを2か月間無料でご利用いただけるクーポンが提供されます。価格は11,980円（税込）から。

新世代のFire HD 8キッズモデルには、タブレット本体に加え、児童書やビデオ、知育アプリ、ゲームなど数千ものキッズ向けコンテンツを1年間使い放題で楽しめる「Amazon FreeTime Unlimited」や、2年間の限定保証が含まれます。角度調整可能なスタンドが付いたキッズモデル専用の保護カバーも付属。価格は14,980円（税込）です。

新世代Fire HD 8の発売は6月3日を予定しています。Fire OS 7（Android Pベース）を搭載したFire HD 8の仕様については、テクニカルドキュメントをご覧ください。

新しいFire HD 8の詳細に関しては、以下のリソースもご用意しております。

· Fireタブレット向けFire OS 7

· Fire TV向けFire OS 7

· Fireタブレット向けの開発について

· Amazon開発者アカウントの登録（無料）

· アプリの申請

Today, we are excited to announce the next generation of our Fire HD 8 tablet lineup, designed with the entire family in mind. “The new Fire HD 8 tablets offer the features that everyone in the family wants – great content, more storage, longer battery life – at a price that is incredibly affordable,” said Kevin Keith, Vice President, Amazon Devices. With today’s news, customers can enjoy a faster performing Fire HD 8 lineup with an improved experience to handle daily streaming needs.

Below are the new Fire HD 8 devices announced today:

The all-new Fire HD 8 comes with an 8” HD display, 30% faster performance with 2GB RAM, 2x the storage (32 or 64 GB of internal storage and up to 1TB with microSD card), up to 12 hours of battery life, easier charging with USB-C, and access to millions of movies, TV shows, songs, eBooks, magazines, games, and educational and entertainment apps – only $89.99.

Introducing Fire HD 8 Plus, an enhanced Fire HD 8 experience with 3GB of RAM, hassle-free wireless charging, a 9W in-box USB-C charger for faster charging, and, for a limited time, six months of Kindle Unlimited included – only $109.99.

The all-new Fire HD 8 Kids Edition includes the Fire HD 8 tablet, one year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited with access to over 20,000 kid-friendly books, Audible books, videos, educational apps and games, a Kid-Proof Case with an adjustable stand, and a two-year worry-free guarantee – only $139.99.

The all-new Fire HD 8 is available for pre-order today and device shipments begin June 3. The Fire HD 8 runs on Amazon’s Fire OS 7 (based on Android P). Check out our technical documentation to learn more about the specs.

For more information on the new Fire HD 8, see the following resources:

· Fire OS 7 for Fire Tablets

· Fire OS 7 for Fire TV

· Learn more about developing for Fire tablet

· Register for a free Amazon Developer account

· Submit your app

The Alexa Prize SocialBot Grand Challenge is now in its third year.  And for a third time participating student teams have made exciting advances in the state-of-the-art of conversational AI.  With gratitude for the efforts of all the teams this year, I am delighted to announce the five teams that are advancing to the Alexa Prize Finals.

The three socialbots with the highest average customer ratings during the semifinal period have automatically advanced: Alquist from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Emora from Emory University, and Gunrock from the University of California, Davis. We also advanced two wildcard teams this year based on evaluation criteria that included ratings from Alexa customers, depth and breadth of topics covered, appropriateness and accuracy of responses, and scientific merit as determined by the content of their technical papers: Chirpy Cardinal from Stanford University and Athena from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In July 2019, ten university teams were selected from applications submitted by labs around the world to compete for the Alexa Prize. Since then, teams have been working tirelessly to delight customers with engaging and coherent conversations on a variety of popular topics. Now, the advancing five teams will compete for the Grand Prize.  If they have a composite score of 4.0 or higher, and at least two-thirds of their Socialbot’s conversations with interactors last for 20 minutes, they will win a $1 million research grant for their University.

Congratulations to Alquist, Athena, Chirpy Cardinal, Emora, and Gunrock!

On behalf of the entire Amazon Alexa organization, I want to thank all of the Alexa Prize teams for their creativity, passion, and contributions to both AI science and to delighting Alexa customers. We will be publishing the teams’ technical papers in a special-edition Alexa Prize Journal later this summer, enabling all teams to share their innovative ideas with the scientific community.

In the meantime, please continue to support our finalists by chatting with their socialbots, it’s as easy as saying “Alexa, let’s chat” to your Alexa-enabled device. You can also follow #AlexaPrize on Twitter and bookmark our website for further updates.

This past September, 10 university teams, from schools around the world, officially began their journey with the Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge 3. Teams spent part of their summer attending an intensive boot camp to learn what it means to be customer obsessed and how to integrate their ideas into the Alexa Prize infrastructure. Now ready to compete, teams have built an AI (called a socialbot), at scale, capable of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans for 20 minutes. Their socialbots should be able to discuss popular topics and news events such as entertainment, fashion, politics, sports, and technology.

Even as innovators create AI that can drive cars, play board games, and diagnose diseases, the seemingly intuitive task of everyday social conversation remains an elusive goal. Undaunted, the student teams have geared up to tackle the challenge. As they build their socialbots, they will encounter esoteric problems like context modeling and dialog planning as well as exoteric problems like user experience and conversational engagement. The Alexa Prize provides a unique opportunity for industry and academia to come together to address these challenges.

We invite you to join the students on their journey and help them along the way. You can interact with their socialbots simply by saying, “Alexa, let’s chat” on any Alexa-enabled device in the US-English marketplace. You will be connected to one of the 10 socialbots at random. Chat about your favorite topics, say “Stop” when you are done, and share your feedback.

It is still early days in this pioneering journey, and we know the teams will appreciate your help and patience as they learn, iterate, and build new interactive conversational experiences. The socialbots will improve quickly based on your use and feedback. We hope you’ll enjoy interacting with them.

The student teams are working hard, having fun, and well on their way to making history. We look forward to having you join the Alexa Prize community to support them along the way.

Follow the #AlexaPrize hashtag and bookmark our site for updates.

Amazon.FallbackIntentが日本、フランス、イタリア、スペインで使用可能となりました。さらに、AMAZON.PhoneNumber（ベータ）とAMAZON.Ordinal（ベータ）のビルトインスロットタイプも合わせて使用可能となりました。

Alexaスキルの開発者であれば、スキルのインテントに幅広いバリエーションのサンプル発話を含めることで、発話のハンドリング精度が向上することはご存知だと思います。（さらに詳しい情報については、こちらのドキュメントをご参照ください)

しかし、インタラクションモデルがどれほど堅牢であっても、スキルのインテントとまったく一致しない発話を受け取ることがあります。 これらの種類のリクエスト（ドメイン外リクエスト）が意図していないインテントにマッピングされると、予期しない応答が発生する可能性があります。このような問題を解決するために、Alexa Skills Kit は昨年、AMAZON.FallbackIntent を英語ロケールとドイツ語のビルトインライブラリーに追加しました。

スキルのインタラクションモデルに FallbackIntent を追加すると、スキルの開発者とユーザーの両方にメリットをもたらします。 スキルユーザーに対しては、FallbackIntent がドメイン外リクエストを適切にルーティングすることで、より関連性の高い応答が提供されるようになります。 通常これは、ユーザーのリクエストがスキルでは対応できないものであることをユーザーに知らせ、スキルの機能に戻るためのガイダンスを提供するプロンプトとなります。

スキル開発者の場合、インテントリクエスト履歴 APIを使用することで、FallbackIntent カテゴリ内に表示されるドメイン外リクエストを分析することができます。これにより、スキルに期待されている発話や機能を判断し、必要に応じてドメイン外モデルを微調整することが可能となります。

以下は、AMAZON.FallbackIntentがどのように機能するかを示す例です。

ユーザー： アレクサ、トリッププランを開いて
Alexa： 旅行を計画しましょう。目的地はどこですか？

ユーザー： 札幌の天気を教えて （この発話は、トリッププランのどのインテントとも一致しません）
Alexaはこの発話をインテントにマッピングできる確率が低いと判断したため、スキルにAMAZON.FallbackIntentを送信します。

Alexa： トリッププランスキルではその質問にはお答えできませんが、フライトを調べたり、旅行の計画の手伝いをしたりすることはできます。どこに行きますか？ （応答にスキルの名前を含めて、ユーザーを正しくガイドします）

AMAZON.FallbackIntentはどのように機能しますか？

AMAZON.FallbackIntentがスキルに追加されると、Alexaの機械学習を使用してスキルの既存のインテントとサンプル発話を自動的に評価し、そのスキルに固有のドメイン外モデルを作成します。 AMAZON.FallbackIntentは、サンプル発話を追加し、拡張することもできます。これにより、開発者は必要に応じてドメイン外モデルを微調整できます。 Alexaがある発話をカスタムインテントのいずれかにマッピングできる確率が高いと判断すると、そのインテントが選択されます。一方、発話がスキルのドメイン外（スキルでは意味をなさない）である確率が高いと判断すると、AlexaはAMAZON.FallbackIntentを選択します。すべてのインテントに対して信頼度が非常に低い場合（音声が不明瞭な場合や雑音が入った場合など）は、かわりに再プロンプトが出される可能性があります。その後、スキルバックエンドは AMAZON.FallbackIntent リクエストを受け取り、適切な指示やガイダンスで応答することができます。

AMAZON.FallbackIntent のドメイン外モデルは、スキルのモデルと、既存のサンプルデータのテンプレートから自動的に生成されます。 ドメイン外モデルはモデルのビルドごとに再生成され、他のインテントへの変更を自動的に組み込みます。（インタラクションモデルの改善に応じて自動的に更新されます。）

AMAZON.FallbackIntentをスキルに追加する方法

Alexa 開発者コンソール上でAMAZON.FallbackIntentを追加し、インタラクションモデルを更新します。

その後、対応するIntent handler をスキルバックエンドに追加します。

他のビルトインインテントと同様に、バックエンドにハンドラを実装する必要があります。 通常これは、ユーザーのリクエストがスキルでは対応できないものであることをユーザーに知らせ、そのスキルの機能に戻るためのガイダンスを提供するプロンプトとなります。また、プロンプトでは、自分がどのスキルと対話しているのかをユーザーが再度認識できるようにする必要があります。以下は ASK SDK for Node.jsを使用したサンプルです。

さらに詳しい情報については、こちらのテクニカルドキュメントを参照してください。

AMAZON.PhoneNumber (ベータ) AMAZON.Ordinal (ベータ) が利用可能になりました

ビルトインスロットタイプを使用して電話番号と序数値をキャプチャする機能が、すべてのロケールに拡張されました。

AMAZON.PhoneNumber (ベータ) は、電話番号を表す数字または単語を句読点なしの文字列形式に変換し、国際電話番号、国番号、および地域の電話番号形式をサポートします。

AMAZON.Ordinal (ベータ) は、序数を表す単語を数字に変換します (例：「三番目」から 3)。音声による要素の選択など、複数のユースケースで役立ちます。 これにより、ユーザーはデバイス画面上のビジュアルコンポーネントをよりシームレスに操作できます。 たとえば、Ordinalインテントは、リスト選択をサポートすることができます（例：「二番目のアイテムを選択する」、「四番目のアイテムを選択する」）

関連コンテンツ

• AMAZON.FallbackIntent テクニカルドキュメント
• AMAZON.FallbackIntentとインテントリクエスト履歴
• スロットタイプリファレンス
• Alexa Skills Kit (ASK)
• Alexa 開発者フォーラム

Kixi is a German-language video on demand app designed to offer educationally valuable content for children and families.

We talked to Sascha Stradtmann, head of acquisitions and programming at Kixi, to learn more about Kixi’s service and their reasons for publishing it on Amazon Fire tablets and Amazon Fire TV.

Please tell us more about Kixi and your service.

“Kixi was originally founded under the brand-name Kinderkino in 2011 at a time when video on demand (VoD) was far from mainstream in Germany. Ever since then, Kixi started offering educationally valuable movies, series, cartoons, instructive films and documentaries for children and families. Our licensors are small independent production companies as well as major studios. We offer our partners a turn-key solution for the publishing of their content on our platforms. Kixi is a convenient way for our partners to monetize their content in an economic and efficient way. We use the newest state-of-the-art technology for encoding and content management, so we are able to achieve a lot with a surprisingly small team.

“In addition to the Kixi apps for Fire TV and Fire tablet, we also have an app for our owned and operated VoD platform.”

Why did you choose to publish your app Kixi on the Amazon Appstore and for Fire tablets and Fire TV?

“Amazon offers customers various ways to watch their favorite content – whether at home or on the go. So for us, it’s been a no-brainer to develop for the Amazon Appstore.”

Why did you choose to implement the in-app purchasing API?

“By implementing the in-app purchasing API, we did not have to code a payment service or back-end by ourselves. Instead, we were able to use a reliable ready-made solution.”

How do Amazon customers fit into your target group? What is the value of Amazon customers compared to other audiences?

“With the Amazon Appstore, we reach a wide set of customers and users can choose from a rich app catalog, including a great selection for family and kids. Therefore, the Amazon Appstore is the perfect place for us to engage with our target audience.

How do you optimize the app and content for families?

“We optimize our content strategy two ways: First, which individual title is watched the most and which the least. We try to match the respective successful genre or content type when acquiring new content. Second, we align our content release to days and dates on which VoD is consumed the most.”

How does your app perform on Amazon Appstore?

“Our apps for Fire TV and Fire tablets perform very well! In fact, the Amazon Appstore currently generates the most turnover and revenue for Kixi.” 

What is your experience developing and publishing your app for Amazon devices?  

“It was pretty straightforward. Amazon offers a good environment and framework for developers. Our tips for other developers: Just go for it!”

Getting started with Amazon Appstore

Amazon offers several tools and documents to get you started. You can test your existing APK within minutes to help you understand potentially required adaptations (if any). The Developer Portal also offers a variety of extensive documents to help you implement Amazon specific services, such as Login with Amazon, Amazon Device Messaging or the In-App Purchasing API.

We sat down with eOne to hear more about what drives their kids and family success on Amazon Fire tablets, and what they learned along the way about Amazon Appstore customers.

Entertainment One’s (eOne) ‘Family & Brands’ division creates kid’s content that connects with families around the world by carefully selecting, crafting, and nurturing the best children’s content into global brands.

Why did you initially choose to launch your apps and games on Amazon Appstore?

“Our digital services are an extension of our content and key to engaging with our brands’ fanbase, so it’s important for us to give our brands maximum visibility by making our apps available to as many children and families as possible. Amazon Fire tablets have been growing in popularity, especially in the kids’ space, and with part of our portfolio already available on Amazon Video, having our apps on the Amazon Appstore only seemed like a natural progression.”

What makes Amazon Appstore a valuable store for eOne’s apps?

“We are fortunate that our brands have huge recognition with Amazon consumers, but it’s also important for us to guarantee a good user experience. That’s why we really value their presence on the Amazon Appstore. The easy access to kids content made available by the Appstore family tab on Fire tablets ¹ makes it a very attractive store for our brands. The high level of content curation and commitment to offering a rich and versatile app catalogue for family and kids makes Amazon Appstore a great store for us to engage with our target audience.”

Is there a specific audience behaviour that is unique to Amazon Appstore?

“We have noticed that Amazon Appstore is the store on which our premium apps perform best. This suggests that Amazon consumers value the peace of mind brought by an upfront payment with no further transactions nor advertising.”

What is your approach and vision for content innovation and content breadth?

“Nowadays, consumers expect to have access to content anywhere, at any time and their appetite for it never stops growing. eOne quickly innovated in this area at a time when mobile devices were on the rise to give fans a wealth of high-quality digital content they could enjoy on-the-go or at home. Our digital content strategy has evolved and expanded over the years to include a broad portfolio of free and premium apps, as well as our subscription app, World of Peppa Pig. A lot of parents don’t want to spend hours on the Appstore looking for new content for their children. This app gives families a rich experience that combines games, educational play, videos and creative activities under one roof in a format that is regularly updated. Our apps are directly inspired by the themes, narratives and characters from our shows and feature the original sounds and music that the fans will recognise, and we think that makes our collection of apps truly engaging for our audience.”

How do you determine which monetisation model is appropriate for your apps and games?

“We always strive to make the best content available to as many children and families as possible and provide them a wide a range of options. The main challenge for any children’s app developer is adapting to the ever-changing needs and behaviours of our audiences across the world. By offering different apps models, whether it is free-to-download, subscription or premium apps, we want to make sure that all families can engage with our content in the way that works best for them.

“In our experience, Amazon Appstore customers have favoured the premium model for the peace of mind it gives parents and the great user experience it offers children. That is truly remarkable in an area that has been generally shifting towards free-to-download apps over the years.

“We are also seeing a very positive response to our subscription app World of Peppa Pig. There is clearly a demand for an app that is regularly updated with new content and combines lots of games, videos, episodes on-the-go, and activities under one safe umbrella. “

How do you leverage marketing opportunities with Amazon Appstore?

“To support the adoption of our subscription app World of Peppa Pig, we ran a discount exclusively for Amazon Appstore customers on our yearly subscription plan for the two weeks following Prime Day. The unique nature of the offer allowed us to obtain support from the Amazon Appstore team, which was incredibly helpful to give the app visibility over the promotion period. We promoted the offer on owned channels, the Amazon Appstore storefront and inside the app which generated a 123% increase on installs across Amazon devices.

“The best timing to run campaigns is when people purchase new Amazon devices, as they naturally look for content to download. The days immediately following key device activation dates like Black Friday, the holidays, and Prime Day are perfect opportunities for us to bring our apps to new Amazon device owners’ attention. That’s why we focus most of our marketing efforts after such dates and try to combine it with the release of discounts and new content.”

¹ Available for Appstore customers in US, DE and UK.

Getting started with Amazon Appstore 

Amazon offers several tools and documents to get you started. You can test your existing APK within minutes to help you understand potentially required adaptations (if any). The Developer Portal also offers a variety of extensive documents to help you implement Amazon specific services, such as Login with Amazon, Amazon Device Messaging or the In-App Purchasing API.

So, you’ve published a skill to the Alexa Skills Store and now customers are using it. What’s next? With the metrics dashboard, you can measure how customers are interacting with your skill so you can continue improving their experience over time. To help you get the most out of the metrics dashboard, this post walks through some of the top questions we get from the developer community about it.

1. Why is the number of Unique Customers and User Enablements different?

• User Enablements refers to the total number of unique users who enabled the skill. Some users might enable your skill, but not launch it. It’s important to note that user accounts are not unique to the device. If a single user enabled the skill from both Alexa app and Alexa Skills Store, it will be counted as one user enablement.
• Unique Customers are determined by Alexa user accounts, not devices. If a customer launches your skill on multiple devices that are all registered to the same user account, this is counted as one Unique Customer.

Another reason why these numbers are different is that some users might have enabled your skill, but not launched it yet. Only users who launch a skill are included in the count of Unique Customers.

2. How can I customize my skill dashboard to view the analytics data over time?

You can customize your reporting by selecting the Custom range button and choosing the time frame that you want to see. You can also use the Time Interval controls to change the date range (today, yesterday, last 7 days, last 30 days, or by selecting a custom date range). Using the Aggregation Period drop-down list, you can change how the data is grouped (every 15 minutes, hourly, daily, or weekly).

3. Why does the number of Unique Customers change depending on how the data is aggregated?

The number of Unique Customers changes depending on how you aggregate the data: per hour, per day, or per week. For example, consider the following scenario in which several customers use the same skill in the same day:

• Customer A uses the skill at 1:00 AM.
• Customers B and C both use the skill at 11:00 AM.
• Customer B uses the skill again at 3:00 PM.

When you aggregate the data by hour, you see one Unique Customer at 1:00 AM, two Unique Customers at 11:00 AM, and one unique customer at 3:00 PM. However, when you aggregate the data by day, you see a total of three Unique Customers. Thus, adding together the number of Unique Customers per hour does not necessarily give you the number of Unique Customers per day, because it doesn’t account for repeat users. The metrics that you see on the Analytics page do account for repeat customers, which can help explain why you see differences when you aggregate the data differently.

The Summary section of the Analytics page shows the total number of Unique Customers for the entire date range that you select.

4. Can I see the total metrics for all of a skill’s locales or languages in one place?

Yes. In the language drop-down list in the upper left, choose All to see combined metrics for all of the languages and locales in which your skill is available:

5. How long does it take for the data on the Analytics page to update?

All metrics data is refreshed every two hours, with the exception of the retention metrics (refreshed weekly) and the enablements metrics (refreshed daily).

6. Can I export the data?

Yes, you can export charts, grids, and other metrics visualizations as PNG or JPEG images. You can also download the raw data in CSV format.

Got More Questions?

Don’t worry, we’re here to help. If you run into more questions while using the metrics dashboard, a good place to start is the frequently asked questions about skill metrics. You can also post questions and chat with other Alexa skill developers on our developer forum, or connect with us through our contact form.

You can monitor the performance of your skill through usage metrics available to you in on the Analytics page in the developer console. These metrics give you useful information about how customers are using your skill, and can help guide your decisions on how to design your skill in order to improve the experience.

Related Content

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Alexa developer console
• Developer Forum
• Explore the Metrics Dashboard

Teach Your Monster to Read is part of The Usborne Foundation, which was founded by children’s publisher, Peter Usborne MBE with his children Nicola and Martin.

Peter Usborne has over 40 years of experience creating children’s books and Nicola and Martin also bring with them a wealth of experience creating books and interactive educational resources for children. Together, they wanted to use this knowledge to first address the ongoing crisis in early literacy, which sees too many children fail to learn to read. The goal was to combine education, research and technology to make this difficult task both interactive and fun.

With this in mind, Teach Your Monster to Read, a suite of online literacy games, was born. The games create a fun, playful environment in which over 15 million children have already tackled their first steps of reading.

The success of Teach Your Monster to Read has led the team behind the game to find new ways to help improve the lives of children through learning and education. They aim to create exciting learning experiences through engaging stories, technology, people led design and of course, fun.

They have now also turned their focus to the growing issues with childhood obesity in the UK. Their aim is to create new, interactive ways to help children learn about healthy food.

We had the opportunity to talk to Alex Goss, product manager of Teach your Monster How to Read, and Jonathan Skuse, the game’s co-designer and co-developer, about their game and their experience and reasons for publishing their game on the Amazon Appstore.

Why did you choose to publish your game on the Amazon Appstore and for Amazon Fire tablets?

“We chose to publish Teach Your Monster to Read on the Amazon Appstore because, like any app developer, we want to be where the attention is. Kids play games on all sorts of devices, so it was important to us that we help kids learn to read whether they’re playing in the car on their dad’s phone, sitting at the kitchen table playing on a tablet, or in school during an ICT lesson.”

How do Amazon customers fit into your target group? What is the value of Amazon customers compared to other audiences?

“We don’t think there’s one sort of Amazon customer, so there isn’t one answer to this. However, many parents with young kids use Fire tablets. What’s special about these tablets is that there’s also a dedicated Kids Edition tablet. We’ve also released a version of Teach Your Monster to Read that’s available in FreeTime Unlimited, Amazon’s subscription service for kids content. Amazon designing a tablet built from the ground up for kids goes hand-in-hand with the efforts we put into creating impactful educational games.”

How does your game perform on Amazon Fire Tablets?

“Teach Your Monster to Read performs well on the Amazon Appstore. We think that comes down to excellent QA, listening to feedback from Amazon customers, and working closely with the Amazon Appstore team.”

What is your experience developing your game for Amazon devices?

“Our game started out as a Flash web game about 8 years ago, and it’s now available on all app stores, plus there’s an HTML version on the web. It’s fair to say that it’s come a long way since then and with over 150 million plays, it’s exceeding everyone’s expectations! Developing the game for Amazon has needed little overhead. Amazon’s devices behave in a coherent way; meaning we can develop with confidence due to low fragmentation.”

What is your experience publishing and maintaining the game on Amazon devices? Any tips for other developers?

“It’s been quite straightforward to maintain a stable app on Amazon devices. Fire Kids Edition tablets are a great choice for parents who want to give kids a tablet experience designed just for them while also having peace of mind that the content their kids are viewing is kid-friendly. For those not currently publishing to Amazon devices, we’d say it’s extremely likely that you’re missing out on a big opportunity to reach your audience.”

Getting started with Amazon Appstore

Amazon offers several tools and documents to get you started. You can test your existing APK within minutes to help you understand potentially required adaptations (if any). The Developer Portal also offers a variety of extensive documents to help you implement Amazon specific services, such as Login with Amazon, Amazon Device Messaging or the In-App Purchasing API.

We are delighted to announce that In-Skill Purchasing (ISP) is now generally available for Alexa skills published in France, Italy and Spain! That means you can now earn money by offering premium content in your Alexa skills published in those countries as well. For example, users can purchase virtual game products, unlockable features and add-on content while seamlessly interacting with the voice experience. You define your offering and price, and Alexa handles the voice-first purchasing flow. We also provide self-service tools to manage your in-skill products and optimize your sales performance over time.

ISP currently supports one-time purchases for entitlements that unlock access to features or content in your skill, subscriptions that offer access to premium features or content for a period of time, and consumables, which can be purchased, depleted and purchased again.

One-time purchases unlock access to features or content in a skill. Customers purchase the content once for an entitlement that does not expire. A few local examples are:

• Mentalshock (Italy): an engaging interactive story where players have to explore a futuristic world full of danger and intrigue. The first part is free and the second is unlockable for €1.99. The skill also offers hints for €0.99.
• Hablando se aprende – las tildes (Spain): This fun game lets you guess where the accent mark (á, é, í, ó, ú) should be placed in a word. For only €0.99 the skill also provides corrections and tips to learn more effectively.
• Ciné Quizz (France): this original quiz has 200 movie’s extracts in its database and is perfect to play with friends and family.

With an in-skill subscription, you can offer access to premium features or content for a period of time. Subscriptions support free trials (1 to 31 days) and two billing cycles: monthly or yearly. Examples include:

• Trova Telefono (Italy): a handy skill that calls your phone when you can’t find it around your home. You can now get unlimited uses for €4.99 per year.
• Sleep Sounds: Rain (available in France, Italy and Spain): Skill plays calming rain sound loops to help you fall asleep faster, sleep better, relax, meditate, or drown out distracting noises. With the premium subscription you can enjoy Premium sound quality and enhanced looping to listen longer.
• Rueda de letras (Spain): this fun vocabulary game allows to unlock new game categories for only €1.99/week or €3.99/month.

Consumables can be purchased, depleted, and purchased again. This feature is often used to monetize game hints, extra lives or special items for an adventure game. Examples of skills using consumables include:

• Quiz Treccani (Italy): this devilishly challenging quiz around Italian grammar and etymology offers three daily games, and an additional five games can be unlocked for €0.99.
• Quiz Vero o Falso (Italy): the free version of this trivia allows 3 wrong answers everyday, and additional 10 lives can be unlocked for €0.99.
• Lemonade Stand (available in France, Italy and Spain): Lemonade Stand is a simple business simulation. The game is easy to play, players run a lemonade stand and make business decisions every day. It is possible to protect the lemonade stand during a thunderstorm by buying a 10 umbrellas consumable package for €0.99.

A skill may use different product types together e.g. individual one-time purchases for unlocking specific features/content, and a subscription to unlock all premium features/content.

Getting Started with In-Skill Purchasing

To help you get started with In-Skill Purchasing, we have put together a free guide which you can consult. You can download the guide in your preferred language (Click on the link to go to the preferred version: French, Italian, Spanish). Other useful resources:

• How to design for In-Skill Purchasing
• Sample Code on GitHub: Premium Hello World, Premium Facts

Resources

• Starter Kit: How to Make Money with Alexa Skills: France, Italy and Spain
• Best practices for designing a premium customer experience
• Developer Story: With In-Skill Purchasing, Gal Shenar Sets His Growing Voice Business Up for Long-Term Success
• Developer Story: Musicplode Media Uses In-Skill Purchasing to Turn Its “Beat the Intro” Voice Game into a Hit for Alexa Customers
• Developer Story: Hypno Therapist Alexa Skill Uses In-Skill Purchasing to Reach More Customers and Build a Business
• Test your in-skill purchase before you submit it for certification
• Set up tax forms for payment purposes
• Measure skill usage and earnings with the analytics dashboard within the Developer Console