Amazon Echo Show 5 Coming Soon

Amazon announced the Echo Show 5, coming on June 26. It's an affordable version of its bigger brother, Echo Show. The Alexa family proceeds to grow in helping us to manage and entertain our day digitally. The question: Is it time to revisit NAR MLS IDX policy?

The evolution of Alexa from just delivering audio to audio/visual content is a natural progression of the technology.

In the past, there have been plenty of studies on the comprehension benefits of reading versus listening. Now, there isn't a clear winner as personal preferences and situations determine the most effective media source to absorb content.

Amazon's reaction is to cover all bases with Alexa Presentation Language (APL). APL supports Alexa skills to create multimodal experience solutions—technology to enable interactions with voice, touch, and sight—in delivering a voice-first experience that is complemented with a screen.

Ubiquitous Engagement

Amazon's press release last Wednesday publicized a "coming soon" feature that includes integration with wikiHow.

"Coming soon, a new integration with wikiHow allows you to access hundreds of how-to videos by voice—just ask Alexa to show you how to open a tight jar, clean a cast iron skillet, make a paper crane, or solve a Rubik's Cube."

This cool $89.99 device can provide visual instructions by merely asking Alexa a voice command of "how to."

The compact 5.5" smart display can visually assist in managing your day, providing entertainment, searching the web, and connecting with family and friends. The following are examples of how the Echo Show family can be used in your life.

• While the device sits on the kitchen counter, it becomes a cookbook, a family calendar, or provides a list of daily chores.
• Easily entertain by asking Alexa to play a favorite Netflix or Amazon Prime show or movie.
• Manage your smart home compatible devices to show your security cameras, dim or turn on/off lights, and change the temperature of a room.
• Visually connect with friends and family without picking up your mobile device.
• The Echo Show 5 now is focused on personal privacy with a sliding shutter to cover the camera and by deleting what we say during the day by asking Alexa.

These are a few capabilities the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show have to offer. Pairing the hardware with thousands of visual skills available today, Amazon is positioning itself to deliver its content through a variety of media sources.

NAR Policy Challenges

With Google buying Nest and Amazon creating smart home devices like Echo Show 5, the display of listing information is expanding to a plethora of tools. What we are experiencing is listing data that is not only limited for display on websites, mobile applications, or voice only devices. The future is a convergence of these technologies to deliver information across many types of devices and applications—all in an effort to make our lives easier, simpler, and give us immediate access to content.

NAR Policy considers audio display as "minimal display" and therefore is exempt from disclosing the listing brokerage. The exemption is only valid when all subsequent electronic delivery of listing information that is not "minimal display" does reveal the listing brokerage.

The Question

The Echo Show 5 and Echo Show are audio and visual devices. What is the policy for display of the listing brokerage on these devices? Are the Echo Show and Show 5 still considered a minimal display?

How does current policy apply when innovated devices are designed outside of the current voice-first design patterns? Innovation is on the horizon for patients who have lost speech capabilities from accidents or diseases like ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).

Dr. Edward Chang, Neurosurgeon at the University of California at San Francisco, and his team created a device which can translate brain activity into spoken words. Their research was published in peer-reviewed journal Nature in April.

My Thoughts

Disclosure: I was against the May 2017 NAR MLS Policy change that allowed voice display to be exempt from disclosure of the listing brokerage. As a NAR MLS Issues and Policies Committee member, I voted against the new policy.

Amazon had just released the Fire TV box, and I thought about the future that Dr. Michio Kaku spoke about in a presentation a few years earlier. He said internet screens are going to be all shapes and sizes.

It was my conviction that improvement in the policy could have a longer lasting effect and better governance to protect listing brokerages and agents.

My opinion is simple. Agents and brokers work hard to have the privilege to assist homeowners in selling their property. Why limit the ability to acknowledge them in any media delivery system? Don't consumers have the right to have all the information, including the listing brokerage? I get when there are physical limitations, like a tweet or a posting on Facebook. They are adverts that send consumers to a place where disclosure is provided.

The Reality

The future is not going to send consumers to a place like a website or mobile app. The future Internet is delivering information from any location in a single instance.

Alexa, with natural language processing (NLP), is doing this with the Echo Show 5. This a home-based device and not a mobile application.

Dr. Kaku mentioned in his presentation that he believes the future will have the internet displayed in wallpaper. The possibility of having a room wall connected to Alexa to search for a new home is very much real. It's all coming soon.

This policy will need to be reviewed again and thought needs to be given on how voice display in multimodal environments provide proper disclosure of the listing brokerage for the consumer's benefit. Let's be visionary in protecting brokerage and the consumer. The business is tricky enough as it is.

Just my view, along with my two cents!

To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.