Salutations™!!

I got one of the new Amazon Echo Dot things this week and I think The BCPF is worried about me. I think they made a movie about this kind of thing (Her (2013))? Anyway, from Alexa I get my “good morning” briefing, listen to whatever albums or songs that I want, I can play games, ask questions, access Wikipedia and have Alexa pull up podcasts.

That’s what I’m going to talk about right now, I suppose. Being as that’s what I do for a living, I check to see if my podcasts are available to people on any platform I can find. Alexa has internal apps that are called “skills” that dictate what she knows, how she interacts and so on. So, there’s a skill she has called AnyPod (there’s also TryPod and PodBuddy) that I emailed the developer to check the shows from The Less Desirables Network‘s availability. The Beer Dads and Sipping NC: The Art of Drinking both showed up but she was having trouble with The Less Desirables, The Man Who Ate the Town and Fan Interference podcasts.

Apparently, Alexa (and her “skills”) wanted to look for Les Diserables (as in Les Miserables) and Fan Interference went to a dozen other places when I asked for it. After getting AnyPod to check into it for me, the skill then picked up the right podcasts. Now, I have to play with it a bit and just say “less desirables” and “ate the town” to get it to work right, but they’re at least recognized.

So, if you have an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot, you can now find all your favorite The Less Desirables Network podcasts to listen there. So, if you enable the AnyPod skill, use some of the following phrases: “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play The Less Desirables,” “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play Fan Interference,” “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play The Beer Dads,” “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play The Man Who Ate the Town,” “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play Sipping NC: The Art of  Drinking.”

You may have to modify some of those phrases. Instead, ask “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play Less Desirables,” “Alexa, ask AnyPod to play Ate the Town,” and so on. You can play around with different ways to ask for it. Also, the AnyPod skill is great for playing other podcasts, as well. If you don’t have an Echo or Echo Dot, well, you need to have one. Enjoy!

Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!

—
“The device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic [sic] and other real time [sic] information. It can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation hub.” – Wikipedia page Amazon Echo Dot