Create a Flash News Briefing Skill for your Anchor Podcast right now!

Tim Cox
Tim Cox
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

Amazon’s Flash News Briefing feature is pretty solid even though I don’t use it. You can customize your news, weather, comedy, and inspirational quotes by adding those flash news briefing skills to Alexa. Then, whenever you want to be updated, you just ask Alexa for your briefing like you’re the POTUS.

Anchor released an Alexa Skill and a Flash News Briefing Skill but you’re only able to access some of the top Anchor stations. You can’t just add any old station.

You can add any feed to your morning updates by creating your own Flash Briefing Skill.

Try It Out

You’re probably going to want to wake up to 💯🔥Tim Time🔥💯, so here is the Alexa Skill that allows you to start your morning off super right. You’ll also get the feel for how Flash News Briefings work.

Build your own

Are you podcasting right now? I know I am.

Amazon has created a super easy guide on how to create a Flash Briefing Skill. It will take you five minutes to make, and then you can send a link to all of your Alexa friends.

The steps are as follows:

  1. Register as an Amazon App Developer and Create a Skill — sign into developer.amazon.com with your Amazon.com account. It’s free! Then create a new flash briefing skill.
  2. Set a Name, Language and Error Message — Name it the same name of your podcast for easy identification. Don’t use emoji. It will prevent your skill from showing up in search.
  3. Add One or More Flash Briefing Feeds — paste your podcast RSS feed into the feed field.
  4. Test Your Flash Briefing Skill — You can add the skill to your Alexa app and see how it works on your own Echo device.
  5. Provide Publishing Information for your Skill — Make your new skill look so fancy with large and small icons and catchy descriptive info.
  6. Answer the Privacy and Compliance Questions — You’re probably following the rules.
  7. Perform Final Review and Submit for Certification — You’re probably good here. Amazon was rejecting my skill initially for some weird reason so I submitted a support ticket and they apologized like crazy.

Boom. Approved.

You should hear back from Amazon in one business day. They’re usually slower on the initial approval and pretty speedy if you make an update to the skill, like updating the description or skill icon.

Go create a skill for your podcast and let me know how it went. Comment with a link to your skill so that Medium can add it too!

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Tim Cox

Written by

Tim Cox

Reading and writing poetry and fiction. I am hungry for your feedback. I’m also hungry because I’m a vegetarian.

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