Americans are bored, housebound and screened out. This has created a golden opportunity for audio as consumers turn to podcasts, voice assistants and smart speakers – often at the same time. Roughly 128 million Americans use a voice assistant at least once a month. Smartphones account for most voice assistants, but there are also nearly 160 million smart speakers in American homes. One of the hottest forms of audio content is, of course, podcasts.

Amazon has started paying out cold hard cash to the developers making apps for Alexa, the virtual assistant built into the company's Echo smart speakers. The company described the program on a support webpage for Alexa developers. "We are exploring new ways to reward our developers," Amazon said on the page. "Starting May 2017, we are offering game skill developers the opportunity to earn money based on customer usage." The page doesn't say how much developers can expect to make. For now, Amazon said it is only paying developers who create game apps, or "skills," for Alexa.

Amazon's Echo and Dot connected speakers are sold out, and 35 new products will have Alexa built-in this year. Did Alexa win over Siri, Cortana and Hey Google? LOS ANGELES -- Apple's Siri has been around five years, but Amazon's Alexa is the coolest kid on the voice- computing block now. At least, so it seemed at this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where many manufacturers touted their Alexa functionality as a major selling for 35 new product introductions, including a car, refrigerator, smartphone, robot, Internet router and vacuum cleaner. "There's a real hunger for the next big thing," says Benedict Evans, a partner with investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. "It was web apps, then bots, and now it's voice interfaces."

Amazon's Echo and Dot connected speakers are sold out, and 35 new products will have Alexa built-in this year. Did Alexa win over Siri, Cortana and Hey Google?