AirKast To Provide Free Alexa Skills to
800 North American Radio Stations/Hosts
Unique Functionality
Will Help Sell Mobile Ad Campaigns, Drive Listener Engagement
Pleasanton,
CA, August 18, 2017 -- AirKast Inc., a leader in
mobile app development for broadcasters and media companies, announced today
that it has developed and will be providing free Alexa skills for all its
customers -- including over 800 North American radio stations, syndicated radio
hosts and podcasters -- so they can bring compelling voice interaction to their
audiences. Beyond the basic launching
of radio music streams, AirKast’s unique Alexa skills will enable listeners to
explore, interact and request other content from stations and hosts available through
their own branded mobile apps.
Most
critically, AirKast will be providing a unique
functionality that will now allow those stations and hosts to collect and
harness permission-based user data to help them sell mobile ad campaigns and
drive listener engagement beyond current levels.
New Alexa Skills Will
Help Enrich Personal Connections with Radio Audiences
“We expect that these new Alexa skills will be
quite beneficial to radio stations -- by permitting them to forge easy-to-use
personal connections with their audiences, and by giving them new content whenever
and wherever they want it," explained AirKast CEO Larry Leung. "It’s our mission to not only provide
basic Alexa skills, but also more advanced voice recognition, so fans can interact
with a radio station’s podcasts, show schedules and other application-based
content,” he added. "The radio
industry is excited to see the resurgence of ‘at home’ audio usage as it's been
competing with other digital music services."
"The
effort to deploy Alexa skills is so minimal, it makes perfect sense to offer it
free of charge," Leung stressed.
AirKast
also offers Apple Car Play and Android Auto functionality for free -- which
will be relaunched with auto voice controls -- and believes Alexa voice
commands will significantly enhance that experience.
Additional New AirKast Features
Released
AirKast is
releasing other new features for customers, including: advance push notifications, which include the ability to launch
geo-targeted messaging for programming and sales; multi-language support;
intelligent message scheduling; segmentation opt-in/opt-outs; visual mobile
listening heat maps that can help identify user activity down to the local
county level; breaking news and weather alerts; and live in-app video streaming
support.
“We’ve also
added live in-app video support to recapture the attention of our customer’s
branded audiences," said AirKast VP of Engineering Hung Nguyen. "Currently, many radio stations drive
their audiences to third-party video sites, like Facebook, YouTube and
Periscope, and we want our customers to be able to bring their audiences back
to their own broadcast and branded environment -- so they can start to measure
and monetize their live video efforts.”
“AirKast is
committed to providing data that can help our customers make better business decisions
and, most crucially, that can directly help drive radio sales and programming
results,” he added.
AirKast
is a category leader that works with over 60 media companies -- including CBS
Radio News, Fox Radio News and Cumulus Media -- as well as syndicated show
personalities like Mark Levin. AirKast uses its proprietary
“AirBridge” platform and “Air Connectors” to create mobile applications that
are used for listening and interacting with radio station streams and
advertisings.
About AirBridge and TuneKast
AirBridge, the industry's award-winning hosted digital media delivery platform created by AirKast, is used to build enterprise-class mobile applications that are reliable, secure and scalable so companies can target large audiences that require simultaneous access. AirBridge currently supports market-leading mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, Kindle and Android. Designed for terrestrial and Internet-based radio stations to increase AQH, TuneKast is a mobile application framework that features real-time digital media and online content within branded mobile applications. Please visit www.airkast.com
AirBridge, the industry's award-winning hosted digital media delivery platform created by AirKast, is used to build enterprise-class mobile applications that are reliable, secure and scalable so companies can target large audiences that require simultaneous access. AirBridge currently supports market-leading mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, Kindle and Android. Designed for terrestrial and Internet-based radio stations to increase AQH, TuneKast is a mobile application framework that features real-time digital media and online content within branded mobile applications. Please visit www.airkast.com
