Amazon Alexa Hits 10,000 Skills. Here Comes the Hard Part

A year and a half ago, Amazon opened up its Alexa voice assistant to developers. With the Alexa Skills Kit, Alexa and its hardware hosts--the Echo, Dot, Tap, and now dozens more from third parties--became more than just speakers and digital weathermen. It became a platform, capable of supporting a full ecosystem of skills, which are essentially apps that you talk to instead of touch. Today, there are 10,000 skills available on Alexa. It's an exponential increase since last summer, a rise that presents a host of new opportunities--and new challenges.