Why you should pay attention to voice

Do you remember the movie Her where (spoiler alert) a man basically falls in love with his computer operating system? The movie introduces us to a brave new world of voice where flesh and blood personal assistants are a thing of the past and where Siri has evolved to scary new heights. The crazy thing is that this level of voice control doesn’t even seem very farfetched. Ok, so maybe the current voice-based technologies and operating systems haven’t quite evolved to the point of singularity, that potentially terrifying place where artificial intelligence overtakes mankind, but even with today’s technologies, the voice seems to be hurtling us forward into the future.

Source: quotesgram.com

 New hardware aside, this month marked the launch of iOS 10, and with it a much more advanced voice technology. Siri has added features that allow you to better control more apps and even send messages through third party apps (yay!). Multitasking is a lot better and Siri has even extended its field of control into smart homes. So now you can control the temperature, humidity, security (and more) of your home through voice. Siri is basically already a functional personal assistant even if her voice isn’t quite as sexy as Scarlet Johansson’s. And if Siri isn’t good enough for you, then check out the next generation of Siri, an artificial intelligence called Viv, created by the founders of Siri (they left Apple and now they want Viv to reach every one of your devices).

And the thing is, the voice is everywhere, not just on your phone. Through Kaizena, for example, the voice is revolutionizing education by allowing teachers to give their feedback to students in the form of a voice recording that is linked to specifically highlighted text. This is much more personal and a lot less ambiguous than the comments feature in standard word processing software. Even better than that, speech is a whole lot faster than type and doesn’t require your hands. So you can create totally hands-free comments in seconds.

So what has voice done to change the world of e-commerce? Well, in recent years consumer-generated content has arguably overtaken brand created materials in terms of importance. One of the biggest components of this is product and service reviews. Pretty much every e-commerce platform, store and marketplace have some sort of reviewing platform to allow customers to express their opinions. Voice is now entering the world of e-commerce and changing the way customers interact. With Heyoya, customers can share voice snippets instead of text, and store owners can share product pitches, special offers and more, in a way that is much more personal.

And voice is also influencing the blogosphere (and we are not just talking about vlogging). Written blogs always take the time to find striking images and infographics to support their stories, but voice adds another unique dimension. With voice comments, bloggers can literally hear their reader’s opinions, eliminate ambiguity and react faster. And using voice comments is a great way to help a blog stand out from the crowd in a world that is still primarily focused on text, GIFs and emojis.

Heyoya is a unique comment and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

 For more information about Heyoya, click here.