A few weeks ago, for my birthday, some friends got me the Echo Dot, and while I will hopefully review that at some point, today’s focus is the Alexa’s Flash Briefing feature.
Alexa allows you to put together a list of “Briefings” and when you ask for the flash briefing or a news update it will run through them.
Some of the companies have put together nice little programs, others have taken a seemingly lazy way out, and still others haven’t even attempted to make an Alexa Skill.
Here are what I look for in my briefing, and who I turn to (or don’t) to get it done:
- Local News:
- 1010WINS – 1010WINS, the oldest news station in America, brings about updates throughout the day and is the first stop on my Briefing
- WABC7 – I tried 7Online once…but it was Alexa reading headlines and stories off of the website. I’d rather have an anchor give a one minute update than have her drone through stories.
- National News:
- Fox News – Fox updates their briefings just about every hour, bringing the latest in national news
- Reuters – This came as a standard with the app, and it’s a decent update, but the lowest on my briefing (Aka: I never get to it)
- Sports:
- ESPN – Concise and to the point, ESPN gives the top sports stories, complete with Sports Center music
- Weather: I use the Alexa Weather Skill here, which gives me the days weather
- Comedy:
- The Tonight Show – Fallon’s monologue from the night before tops off my Briefing, if I reach that point
- History:
- The History Channel – This Day In History – A little tidbit about what’s happened on this day in some random year that no one remembers
Aviously 