[tubemonkey]

Amazon Echo - Big Brother is Listening to You

Amazon just recently announced what looks like a very innovative product, the Amazon Echo, a hybrid speaker with voice recognition to answer certain questions and do certain tasks. I have actually signed up for one for research purposes and know what I am getting into, but before you buy one, you really need to consider that the Echo is more about mining you, your friends and your family for deep insights than being an inexpensive speaker and answer genie.

To better understand Amazon’s motives here, you need to consider their business model. Amazon is in the business of selling you everything you need from clothes to groceries to electronics to gifts and everything in-between. To do that better and more efficiently, they need to know more about you, your friends and your family. By knowing more about you, your friends, and your family, they can better suggest new things for you to buy, exactly when to serve the offer up and even the set the right pricing to increase the probability you say “yes”.