‘Nobody is using it’: Amazon Spark is not taking off with brands, agencies(digiday.com)
digiday.com
‘Nobody is using it’: Amazon Spark is not taking off with brands, agencies
https://digiday.com/marketing/nobody-using-amazon-spark-not-taking-off-brands-agencies/
75 comments
Yeah, so much this.
There's a very sound principle within Amazon that one should "work backwards from the customer": pitch ideas for new products based on identifying a clear customer need, then inventing a product that will fulfil that.
But a lot of the pitches I saw were essentially working backwards from sales targets or existing tech - first, invent a customer with an insatiable desire to buy stuff in inexplicably odd ways ("I want to buy stuff by scanning it with my phone!") then invent a product to do that.
The Fire Phone was probably the biggest example of this. I think it just started as somebody deciding that Amazon needed a phone, to drive sales like Android drove web use, and then they chucked in all sort of flashy tech that they happened to have on hand. Such a gigantic pile of WTF.
At least the tablets started out with the idea that people were buying Kindles, listening to Amazon MP3, and watching Amazon Video, and perhaps somebody might want to combine all three in one device. The first Fire tablet was a shoddy pile of minimal-viable-product, but the later ones were fairly nice.
There's a very sound principle within Amazon that one should "work backwards from the customer": pitch ideas for new products based on identifying a clear customer need, then inventing a product that will fulfil that.
But a lot of the pitches I saw were essentially working backwards from sales targets or existing tech - first, invent a customer with an insatiable desire to buy stuff in inexplicably odd ways ("I want to buy stuff by scanning it with my phone!") then invent a product to do that.
The Fire Phone was probably the biggest example of this. I think it just started as somebody deciding that Amazon needed a phone, to drive sales like Android drove web use, and then they chucked in all sort of flashy tech that they happened to have on hand. Such a gigantic pile of WTF.
At least the tablets started out with the idea that people were buying Kindles, listening to Amazon MP3, and watching Amazon Video, and perhaps somebody might want to combine all three in one device. The first Fire tablet was a shoddy pile of minimal-viable-product, but the later ones were fairly nice.
> (their phone, their tablets, Alexa, and apparently their social media platform)
Obviously with the exclusion of the phone, I'm under the impression that Fire TV and Fire Tablets sell pretty well. I know lots of parents who use Fire Tablets for their kids over iPads because they are cheap and the content restriction is really easy. Also, aren't Echo/Alexa-driven products pretty much thriving?
Obviously with the exclusion of the phone, I'm under the impression that Fire TV and Fire Tablets sell pretty well. I know lots of parents who use Fire Tablets for their kids over iPads because they are cheap and the content restriction is really easy. Also, aren't Echo/Alexa-driven products pretty much thriving?
Yeah, well, some people do base their lives on shopping at Amazon, so there's a market there. It's just not as big as it could be. I mean, my prior comment was somewhat limited in nuance. Sure the Kindle tablets are reportedly well-liked, but they're most well-liked by people who buy everything from Amazon.
The thing is, I have a lot of this stuff I'm making fun of. I have a Fire TV Stick, I have a Kindle (the old-fashioned kind with an e-ink display), I had a Fire phone. But, I recognize that they are Amazon service delivery platforms. They exist to sell me products from Amazon. It's all part of a big ecosystem where lots of little frictions are removed from my life if I buy from Amazon. In addition to the devices, I have Prime, I have an Amazon Visa card (5% cash back on purchases from Amazon), I've bought a bunch of music from Amazon (and can have it all stored on Amazon when I change devices without having to remember where I bought it from or deal with weird download limits or whatever), etc.
I'm making fun of myself here, basically, because I'm the ridiculous and stupid consumer that Amazon is building all the their ridiculous and stupid consumer products for. But, even I saw through the bullshit that was the Fire phone and found it absolutely ridiculous. And, I have a Nexus tablet and no interest in a Fire tablet, even at a better price than competing Android devices. The value proposition from a standard Android device with the Google apps is higher for me in phones and tablets. I won't likely fall for another Amazon produced phone or tablet. And, I haven't yet seen a compelling reason to invite Alexa into my home.
The thing is, I have a lot of this stuff I'm making fun of. I have a Fire TV Stick, I have a Kindle (the old-fashioned kind with an e-ink display), I had a Fire phone. But, I recognize that they are Amazon service delivery platforms. They exist to sell me products from Amazon. It's all part of a big ecosystem where lots of little frictions are removed from my life if I buy from Amazon. In addition to the devices, I have Prime, I have an Amazon Visa card (5% cash back on purchases from Amazon), I've bought a bunch of music from Amazon (and can have it all stored on Amazon when I change devices without having to remember where I bought it from or deal with weird download limits or whatever), etc.
I'm making fun of myself here, basically, because I'm the ridiculous and stupid consumer that Amazon is building all the their ridiculous and stupid consumer products for. But, even I saw through the bullshit that was the Fire phone and found it absolutely ridiculous. And, I have a Nexus tablet and no interest in a Fire tablet, even at a better price than competing Android devices. The value proposition from a standard Android device with the Google apps is higher for me in phones and tablets. I won't likely fall for another Amazon produced phone or tablet. And, I haven't yet seen a compelling reason to invite Alexa into my home.
Amazon is now like google, they just keep building things without any commitment to it. If it sticks they will add more developers to it, if it doesn't they will kill it. They were pushing Spark on mobile. It's sorta hidden under the nav menu. You click on the nav icon, and then you get the menu, and to the right of the menu you see some spark cards. It's terrible UI, terrible placement and annoying.
I can understand the rationale for why Amazon would build something like this. Amazon owns a large chunk of the market of ecommerce in instances when customers already know roughly what they’re looking for. A big growth opportunity that’s mostly untapped for them is convincing people to do their serendipitous, casual browsing (think: walking through a mall and seeing what’s on display) on Amazon. This is their latest attempt to capture that use case and foster that kind of “daily habit” type mentality (see also their gold box deals and similar product features).
One thing that’s unclear to me is why they’d use Instagram as their inspiration rather than Pinterest when the latter more clearly lends itself to shopping, and when there’s a natural tie-in with Amazon’s wish lists functionality (totally conceivable to change wish lists into some kind of Amazon pinboards).
One thing that’s unclear to me is why they’d use Instagram as their inspiration rather than Pinterest when the latter more clearly lends itself to shopping, and when there’s a natural tie-in with Amazon’s wish lists functionality (totally conceivable to change wish lists into some kind of Amazon pinboards).
It seems like there are some product categories where there are known reputable reviewers and this is an attempt to formalize that and make it more discoverable. A cure for the fake reviewers ' influence on review aggregations. Sounds great in theory. I'm thinking of those couple of guys who methodically tear down and test every aspect of every major new USB-C cable or accessory. I tend to trust what they say, or at least I value the information they are presenting.
It seems like they were trying to emulate AliExpress, which has built-in giveaways and all kinds of badges for "bloggers" who take pictures of their items and write reviews. It appears to be mainly used by Russians although it is open to Americans on the app, but the links don't appear anywhere on the English webpage. AliExpress is like a bizarre hybrid between Amazon & Ebay (at least the imported stuff) with an international bent.
Never heard of it until today.
> Spark, which launched in July, is a social feed of photos. It is similar to Instagram, but open only to Prime members.
There is the reason--thinly veiled way to encourage people to buy Prime. Facebook succeeds because "everyone is there." Not everyone can afford Prime.
> Spark, which launched in July, is a social feed of photos. It is similar to Instagram, but open only to Prime members.
There is the reason--thinly veiled way to encourage people to buy Prime. Facebook succeeds because "everyone is there." Not everyone can afford Prime.
Looking for the "Amazon App" in the AppStore results with a dozen or so Amazon applications, which one are they referring to?
This one can’t be a shocker. I even had to open my Amazon app to see if it existed for me, and sure enough it’s tucked way down at the bottom of the left side menu.
Definitely odd to shove a weird pseudo-social marketing feed into my shopping app... there’s no way the people behind this actually thought it would catch on, right? If this disappeared tomorrow I don’t think anyone would notice.
Definitely odd to shove a weird pseudo-social marketing feed into my shopping app... there’s no way the people behind this actually thought it would catch on, right? If this disappeared tomorrow I don’t think anyone would notice.
I can't find it at all, in the app or the web site. Either they decided to launch it dead, or they haven't really launched it yet.
I totally missed that it existed. Now that I know it does, I still have no interest in it. It's not clear to me at all what value it's adding.
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Amazon launched a social media platform? I am a Prime member, and had no clue. I'm not sure I would have been interested had I known, but this may be a marketing failure as much as anything else.
I didn't even know it existed. But, even if I did, why would I use it? Most products have a few hundred reviews that are already present, that I can use to decide if it's a good product or not. It definitely doesn't help it's cause, that it's only available for Prime users. Oh, it comes with some user uploaded images? Prepare to filter through a barrage of unprofessional images, that are too dark to even make out the product.
It almost feels like this product was conceived by someone's kid, and they allowed it's release to give him/her a participation trophy. Then abruptly afterward swept it under the rug, afraid someone might behold the abomination.
It: -Has no market use. -Has terrible application. -Has no marketing, other than this article.
It almost feels like this product was conceived by someone's kid, and they allowed it's release to give him/her a participation trophy. Then abruptly afterward swept it under the rug, afraid someone might behold the abomination.
It: -Has no market use. -Has terrible application. -Has no marketing, other than this article.
I read one theory that products like Amazon Spark or Facebook Mail exist to ward off antitrust regulators' attention by giving the appearance of more competition between tech giants without having a serious expectation of success. I'm not sure if that's true but it's interesting to consider.
Just so people know, these are generally known as 'complimentary' or 'covering' bids in the public procurement world. Market allocation agreements are also another heading that this would fall under in these specific examples.
Those terms should give you a wealth of information about how and why these strategies work to conceal collusion between competitors.
Those terms should give you a wealth of information about how and why these strategies work to conceal collusion between competitors.
I honestly think it's a very interesting and plausible theory, but let's assume these are serious attempts of said companies:
I just think it's hilarious that these products (AMZN Spark, FB Mail...) are so bad that people believe in conspiracy theories rather than accepting a dry truth as an explanation.
I just think it's hilarious that these products (AMZN Spark, FB Mail...) are so bad that people believe in conspiracy theories rather than accepting a dry truth as an explanation.
Well that is diabolical, and a very plausible theory. It does explain some of the more oddball products put out by large dominate companies.
plausible? hardly.
What makes you say that?
Probably because it assumes it's more likely that this is the result of an ingenious, diabolical plan as opposed to incompetence.
The greatest trick the devil ever played, was to convince everyone he was stupid.
The second part of Hanlon's Razor, was to not rule out malice.
The second part of Hanlon's Razor, was to not rule out malice.
I must be missing the irony somewhere, but I wasn't aware of a second part to Hanlon's Razor.
There's no irony. It's often given in that form.
The "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" makes that rather odd.
I suppose, but a little more nuance is welcome. The CJR ran a piece about Seymour Hersh, but I think a lot of the things they had to say about Hanlon's Razor and similar aphorisms are thoughtful and relevant to this discussion: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/seymour_hersh_osama_bin_laden.p...
> No phrase has been bandied about more than “conspiracy theory” in describing Hersh’s reporting. Critics argue that he’s accusing “hundreds of people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that has gone on for years.” How could that be possible?
> [...]
> [I]t is extraordinarily naive to think the government is incapable of keeping a large secret involving dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people. I am reminded of this passage from the memoirs of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who knows a thing or two about how government secrecy works. Not only is the idea that you can’t keep secrets in Washington “flatly false,” Ellsberg writes, but by repeating it you’re doing the government’s work for them.
>> [Such sayings] are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn’t in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public … The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.
> [...]
> The old adage that “three people can only keep a secret if two are dead” is a fantasy, and journalists should stop mindlessly repeating it.
> No phrase has been bandied about more than “conspiracy theory” in describing Hersh’s reporting. Critics argue that he’s accusing “hundreds of people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that has gone on for years.” How could that be possible?
> [...]
> [I]t is extraordinarily naive to think the government is incapable of keeping a large secret involving dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people. I am reminded of this passage from the memoirs of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who knows a thing or two about how government secrecy works. Not only is the idea that you can’t keep secrets in Washington “flatly false,” Ellsberg writes, but by repeating it you’re doing the government’s work for them.
>> [Such sayings] are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn’t in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public … The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.
> [...]
> The old adage that “three people can only keep a secret if two are dead” is a fantasy, and journalists should stop mindlessly repeating it.
"Ingenious" is laying it on a little thick, don't you think?
How does it help the company in question? In the scenario, you propose Facebook mail is selflessly helping to fend off antitrust regulators off Gmail.
Google pretends to have shopping [1] to shield Amazon, Amazon pretends to have social media [2] to shield Facebook, Facebook pretended to have mail to shield Google [3]. It's an interesting thought, especially considering how half-assed most of these non-core projects are.
1) https://www.google.com/shopping
2) https://www.amazon.com/Spark/b?ie=UTF8&node=16907772011
3) https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5443454/facebook-retires-...
Combine it with the wage collusion case [4] from a few years ago and it's entering the plausible territory
4) http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-job...
1) https://www.google.com/shopping
2) https://www.amazon.com/Spark/b?ie=UTF8&node=16907772011
3) https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5443454/facebook-retires-...
Combine it with the wage collusion case [4] from a few years ago and it's entering the plausible territory
4) http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-job...
Could also be Amazon pretends to have social media, and then when challenged as being a monopoly they can say something like "well, ecommerce is but one of our many products and across out entire portfolio we have lots of competition" or something to that effect. Just redirect to the sham loser products to make an appearance of competition, even though the lion's share of revenue is derived from a line of business that has a monopoly position.
Actually makes a ton of sense considering that tech company stock prices often move in tandem or are otherwise aggregated together by ETFs and mutual funds. Why not collude off the record to ward off antitrust? It makes stuff like Google+ not completely stupid.
It's not selfless; it's mutually beneficial. Someone looks at the existence of Facebook's core platform, Google+, GMail, and Facebook Mail, and concludes that nothing is amiss, since the bigger products have well-funded competition.
Never thought about that, very interesting but not completely surprising when you hear stories of Apple and Google working together to keep salaries low.
Think about how demoralizing it must be to work on that project. Especially if you're a new person and all full of hopes and ambition. You end up stuck on a dead-end project that was designed to fail, and it doesn't matter how hard you work, it is bound for the roundfile.
Been there, done that - twice.
Amazon has a tendency to spin up internal startup-like groups to try out a bunch of fairly random ideas and see which ones stick.
As an example, I worked in one team whose brief was literally just "We want another IMDB to sell ads on, but for a different vertical. You pick." - we created a user-generated music encyclopedia because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It sank without trace after three-four years of almost-zero usage - although we did have a few fanatical users who submitted literally hundreds of thousands of edits. It was ... odd.
It really is demoralizing to work on a team which is started to pursue a dubious idea with no market. You have to go in each day and ignore the nagging doubts that tell you that in two years, the team will dissolve and you'll be onto a different project.
The only thing that keeps you going is that the tech is usually interesting and fun to work with, and occasionally a team can pivot onto a different idea. The aforementioned team spun off a separate team focused on getting artists to pay to customize their Amazon pages, a bit like IMDb Pro. A different team building a (doomed) external tool inspired a colleague to start a micro-team and build what became a well-loved internal content creation tool.
On the other hand - while the environment isn't great for doing startup-like teams (twitchy lawyers, bureaucracy, lack of external interest because you're just another Amazon product instead of a shiny new startup), when the product fails you ultimately still have a job.
Amazon has a tendency to spin up internal startup-like groups to try out a bunch of fairly random ideas and see which ones stick.
As an example, I worked in one team whose brief was literally just "We want another IMDB to sell ads on, but for a different vertical. You pick." - we created a user-generated music encyclopedia because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It sank without trace after three-four years of almost-zero usage - although we did have a few fanatical users who submitted literally hundreds of thousands of edits. It was ... odd.
It really is demoralizing to work on a team which is started to pursue a dubious idea with no market. You have to go in each day and ignore the nagging doubts that tell you that in two years, the team will dissolve and you'll be onto a different project.
The only thing that keeps you going is that the tech is usually interesting and fun to work with, and occasionally a team can pivot onto a different idea. The aforementioned team spun off a separate team focused on getting artists to pay to customize their Amazon pages, a bit like IMDb Pro. A different team building a (doomed) external tool inspired a colleague to start a micro-team and build what became a well-loved internal content creation tool.
On the other hand - while the environment isn't great for doing startup-like teams (twitchy lawyers, bureaucracy, lack of external interest because you're just another Amazon product instead of a shiny new startup), when the product fails you ultimately still have a job.
Seems ideal in some regards. Problems to solve, and opportunities to learn, and if it all falls apart you're just moving on to another new problem to solve.
Indeed. I had a lot of fun working on some of this stuff. Just gotta ignore that nagging doubt that it's all pointless.
At least I could console myself with the thought that, while I probably wasn't going to make a difference to the world, I wasn't going to harm it. The more conscientious of my colleagues over in the advertising teams didn't have that comfort...
At least I could console myself with the thought that, while I probably wasn't going to make a difference to the world, I wasn't going to harm it. The more conscientious of my colleagues over in the advertising teams didn't have that comfort...
I am currently doing that. It sucks, but it pays the bills.
But isn't this going to eventually gnaw at you? Nobody wants to be relegated to a zombie employee status just to maintain the status quo on a project. Folks like to be challenged as this is ultimately how you grow.... my 0.2c
The dead-end projects can still be interesting and challenging, and you can learn a lot from them if you're just treating them as personal development.
My first involved preparing a user-generated-content website to scale to 200 hits/second. The second saw us attempting to squeeze an HTML animatic editor (like storyboards, but with music and audio) onto a 7" tablet with severely limited memory and CPU.
Of course, as I mentioned above - sometimes just "this is gonna make me a better developer" doesn't quite cut it for two-three years. It's easier to find motivation if something is a challenge and you reckon it's got even a slim chance of making a difference in the real world.
My first involved preparing a user-generated-content website to scale to 200 hits/second. The second saw us attempting to squeeze an HTML animatic editor (like storyboards, but with music and audio) onto a 7" tablet with severely limited memory and CPU.
Of course, as I mentioned above - sometimes just "this is gonna make me a better developer" doesn't quite cut it for two-three years. It's easier to find motivation if something is a challenge and you reckon it's got even a slim chance of making a difference in the real world.
Developers tend to forget that technical solution is only a part of the problem.
Projects that don't have a market tend to have less politics since no one really gives a single one, so you definitely miss at least on this; or the actual skills of massaging the product into user acceptance (since you don't really have any true users).
Projects that don't have a market tend to have less politics since no one really gives a single one, so you definitely miss at least on this; or the actual skills of massaging the product into user acceptance (since you don't really have any true users).
> It almost feels like this product was conceived by someone's kid
Could it be the output of some Amazon version of Google's "20% time"?
Could it be the output of some Amazon version of Google's "20% time"?
Amazon doesn't have any official 20% time policy, although occasionally developers do have side projects on their own time.
As I mentioned above, though, they do spin up small teams to quickly knock out some half-assed idea some VP had. It may well even have been the VP's kid's idea, passed to leadership via the VP.
As I mentioned above, though, they do spin up small teams to quickly knock out some half-assed idea some VP had. It may well even have been the VP's kid's idea, passed to leadership via the VP.
The headline could just as easily be, “Nobody has heard of it.” How does Amazon fail to market something so completely? Internal politics?
You’re the fourth person on a tech site, out of five who commented, who didn’t even know it existed. That’s pretty telling.
You’re the fourth person on a tech site ...
It's not really a tech tool though, and probably isn't marketed to tech people. It's a 6 month old Pinterest-but-for-shopping type of mash up. It's not really out of line for the developer crowd to not know it (or to have read the press release back in July and promptly forget it).
Plus I think there was an article on here a week or two ago about how hard it is to compete with Pinterest...
It's not really a tech tool though, and probably isn't marketed to tech people. It's a 6 month old Pinterest-but-for-shopping type of mash up. It's not really out of line for the developer crowd to not know it (or to have read the press release back in July and promptly forget it).
Plus I think there was an article on here a week or two ago about how hard it is to compete with Pinterest...
Add another Prime member who didn't know it existed!
Not only that but I can't even find it going to look for it. amazon Prime page ^F "spark" returns nothing, Search on Amazon returns energy drinks and other items by that name, the android app doesn't seem to have it either.
It might actually be useful if it has good search & discoverability for products, but if no one even knows about it...
Not only that but I can't even find it going to look for it. amazon Prime page ^F "spark" returns nothing, Search on Amazon returns energy drinks and other items by that name, the android app doesn't seem to have it either.
It might actually be useful if it has good search & discoverability for products, but if no one even knows about it...
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I work there and have never heard of it.
I though it was one of the many AWS products. I would have guessed one that sends email/SMS, etc.
I thought it was a hosted offering of Apache Spark which has been around for years. Odd to choose a name like that.
That was my first impression as well. Yet another hobbled open-source technology being offered at a ridiculous price to tighten the lock-in noose on AWS. Yay.
Turns out it's just another social media flop. I'm okay with that.
Turns out it's just another social media flop. I'm okay with that.
Can you elaborate? Are you saying Apache Spark itself is hobbled, or Amazon is offering a hobbled version?
Yes, I thought the same thing. I was picturing a bunch of marketers trying to crunch big data.
I also had no idea it existed. I can imagine that someone had the idea that having an "instagram-like" feed of product content that was tightly tied to an e-commerce platform that allows you to purchase those products was a good idea. But it doesn't seem like they are executing it in a way to get adoption...
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Mazda did a product launch yesterday at the New York Auto Show and mentioned they were doing some kind of "social" thing with Amazon. Is this it? This seems kind of sad.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14799025
3 points, 8 months ago
Amazon launches Spark, a shoppable feed of stories and photos (techcrunch.com)
1 Comment: Yes, a new way to help people shop! It's just what we needed ;)
Amazon launches Spark, a shoppable feed of stories and photos (techcrunch.com)
1 Comment: Yes, a new way to help people shop! It's just what we needed ;)
There should be a limit to the amount of crap a company can shove in your face after they get the privilege of your attention.
Apple Ping anyone?
Amazon Spark what?! Anyway, I just want to see a video where some business guy announced the plan to launch a consumer product for paid users and the rest of the team roll their eyes! :D Should have happened definitely!
More likely, the dev team carefully conceal their eye-rolling, and agree enthusiastically to the plan.
If your normal job is working on the ancient Amazon website codebase and holding back the bile you feel as you add yet another "SIGN UP TO PRIME!!!!!!" banner, then a couple of years of being paid to build a green-fields project using the technology of your choice sounds pretty great.
If your normal job is working on the ancient Amazon website codebase and holding back the bile you feel as you add yet another "SIGN UP TO PRIME!!!!!!" banner, then a couple of years of being paid to build a green-fields project using the technology of your choice sounds pretty great.
Maybe they write this stuff off as an employee retention program.
Hah! Could be. It certainly worked for me - I stayed eight years, rotating teams on average every three years. Greenfields project, big established project, greenfields project, back to big established project. Learned a heck of a lot too, in a very wide variety of areas.
Can people stop naming products "Spark" already? There's a programming language, Web framework, cluster computing technology, email client, and instant messaging client all named the same thing.
Protip: Look for the Wikipedia disambiguation page. Here's the one for "ace", which is more overused than Spark, even:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_(disambiguation)
Here's spark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_(disambiguation)
Here's spark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark
They could name it Pandora Nexus.
Overused names are a pet peeve of mine. "Oh, your speechbot is named Jarvis? How original."
Overused names are a pet peeve of mine. "Oh, your speechbot is named Jarvis? How original."
And there also used to be a hardware prototyping board, now renamed to Particle, for exactly that reason.
Maybe they could name it Elm.
Chevy Spark
Amazon wishes people built their daily lives around shopping at Amazon and would share that with their friends. Amazon wishes people wanted to take pictures of products so you could buy them from Amazon (this was one of the "innovative" features of the Fire Phone, it was called Firefly, and I never used it once in the year or so that I used that generally awful phone). It's like they start from the premise of, "Sell more stuff!", and then build products around that. Anything else that gets into the mix is just a flashy gimmick to get you into the store.
There have been Amazon products that have succeeded, obviously, since they're bigger than god and still growing (and I shop there all the time, and use/like AWS). But, boy, do they suck at consumer technology.