AiC Episode 134

In this episode, Teri welcomes Dr. Steven Arkonovich, a professor of philosophy at Reed College by day and a leading Alexa skill developer by night.

Welcome, Dr. Arkonovich!

Dr. Arkonovich began developing Alexa skills in 2015 before the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) SDK was even released and is best known for having the top-rated Alexa skill for weather. Big Sky has over 2,500 reviews and a 4.5-star rating. That puts Big Sky in the top 20 for skill reviews overall and number one in the weather category. He comes on to talk about his experience in creating skills for Alexa and Bixby, and his award-winning skill, Big Sky.

Philosophy Professor to Voice Technology Enthusiast

  • A combination of trying to put off doing a research project and an Achilles tendon injury is what ultimately led him into developing an interest in voice technology! He was confined to a chair for a prolonged period of time and so he was looking for things to do.
  • He got an Alexa device early on and he liked the technology. He kept hacking around with it to have it do things that it wasn’t capable of doing at the time, like play music on his stereo or turn his lights on and off.

Coding Experience

  • He hadn’t done any coding before he got into Alexa skill development.
  • The fact that critical aspects of philosophy and coding are similar helped him in his start as a skill developer.
  • He wanted to integrate Alexa into his music server software so he could tell Alexa to play his preferred songs or albums. That was when he was referred to an actual Alexa skill developer who was doing some early Alexa projects.
  • The developer wrote some basic code for him, but it had some issues and he decided to fix them himself. That’s how he started self-teaching himself the necessary coding to do to the skill development.

His First Skills

  • It was a lights integration skill that included color loops and timers, features that are not yet available in any Alexa skill or device.
  • He would use it to control his lights.
  • He also developed skills for Evernote integration, Google Calendar integrations, and other things.
  • The Google Calendar integration skill is actually still available in the skill store.

Big Sky

  • This is his flagship skill and it’s all about the weather.
  • He created it to give him much more detailed and obscure weather information that at the time Alexa didn’t provide. Amazon has since upped their game in that regard.
  • He didn’t think much about it when he published it, but then over a period of six months, people started using it and it became very popular.

Facing Skill Imitations

  • He has unique features in his skill (Big Sky), but he has witnessed some concerning issues with Amazon copying some of his features into their own weather skill.
  • Asking for the weather from Big Sky or Alexa is similar in certain ways, but Big Sky is much more detailed in the forecasts it provides. It, for example, analyses the weather behind the scenes to find interesting patterns like whether the chance of rain is increasing or decreasing.
  • The data it provides comes from the Dark Sky API.

Takeaways From Alexa Live

  • He loved the event and the features Amazon released.
  • He thinks the Quick Links feature is going to be beneficial for all users including Alexa skill developers. The NFI tool kit will also be great for developers and users depending on how it will be implemented.
  • Other features that he liked included Alexa Conversations (which was integrated into Big Sky).

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

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