01 SET UP YOUR BLOG

If you already have a self-hosted blog then you can use this for your flash updates, but if you don’t then there’s no harm in using one hosted by a third party. Point your browser at wordpress.com and create a new site; when you’re given the option of using a paid domain or a subdomain of wordpress.com, choose the latter because it’s free.

02 THE MOST BASIC DESIGN

Choose a template from the selection WordPress offers. You can change it later, but unless you plan to also drive visitors to the site it’s not worth worrying too much about the style. You’ll now be asked which hosting plan you want: the default costs £7, but if you scroll down you can select a free option, which gives you an ample 3GB of storage.

03 PUBLISH YOUR SITE

Remove any dummy content from your new blog and replace it with something more appropriate. In most cases, it’s fine to keep things functional rather than fancy. Click the Launch button to make your site live, then check that the RSS feed is working by adding /feed/ to the end of your domain.

04 WRITE A PLACEHOLDER POST

When the time comes to link your RSS feed to the Alexa skill, Amazon will check that it’s a valid feed – and this will fail if it doesn’t yet contain any posts. To prevent that, return to the WordPress dashboard now and create a placeholder post. Publish it, then refresh your RSS feed to make sure everything is working as it should.

05 CREATE YOUR SKILL

Now it’s time to create our skill. Point your browser at blueprints.

amazon.co.uk and click Flash Briefing, followed by “Make your own”. Provide a name for your briefing and select a category from the dropdown menu. These settings will help your users find your flash briefing and understand the kind of content that it will deliver.

06 LINK YOUR FEED

Provide an introductory message to be spoken at the start of your flash briefing. This will notify users who have subscribed to several briefings when yours is beginning, and it must start with either “in” or “from”. Select the RSS option from the Content section and enter the /feed/ address from step three. Click Text on the line below.

07 NAME YOUR BRIEFING

Select either daily or weekly updates, as appropriate. Click “Next: Name” and the blueprint will suggest a name for your flash briefing. Double click this and enter something more appropriate, using only letters, spaces and apostrophes. If you need to include numbers, spell them out. Now click “Next: Create skill”.

08 POST YOUR FIRST UPDATE

Test your skill by saying “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”; you should hear the placeholder post you added to your blog in step four. You can now go back and delete that post, and replace it with a new one. Remember, your flash briefing is set to update daily, so this “real” post might not appear on Alexa until the following day.

09 SHARE YOUR SKILL

At this stage, your skill will only be available to Echo devices logged in to your Amazon account. If you want to use it to promote your business, you need to share it. Click “Share with others”, then click either Yes or No when asked if your skill is intended for use by children. Ours isn’t, so we’ll click No.

10 COPY AND PASTE

Amazon now generates a link to your skill, along with some buttons to help you easily share it with colleagues and customers. If you want to publicise the link on your own website, click the “Copy link” option and paste the link onto your page. When visitors follow it, they’ll see an Enable button, which will add your skill to their Alexa account.

11 ADDRESS THE WORLD

If you want the whole world to be able to discover and enable your homemade skill, you can publish it in the Alexa Skills Store. You can’t share it privately at the same time, however; to revoke shared access, click the Revoke link beside Visibility at the top of the page, then select “Publish to Skills Store”. 12 PUBLISH TO THE STORE

After clicking “Publish to Skills Store”, select “Get started”. Your skill needs to be reviewed by Amazon before it goes live, which can take a few days: Amazon describes the process at pcpro.link/318store. Once your skill is approved, your flash briefings will be available to hundreds of millions of Echo users worldwide – congratulations!