Create your own Flash Briefing with #Alexa #Skills
So, this started because I wanted to listen to Italian news (RAI) on an English (UK) Amazon Alexa device, and the news source was not available. With a quick Google, I found someone who released a NodeJS based app that captured the feed from RAI, and reformatted the JSON into a format that is compatible with Alexa. I forked this repo here;
https://github.com/infiniteloopltd/alexa-flash-briefing-grr-radio-rai
Then, using Heroku, I deployed the Github repo onto a temporary domain, which you can see here;
https://flash-briefing.herokuapp.com/
Then, I headed over to Developer.Amazon.com, clicked on Alexa -> Create Alexa Skills -> Console
Then Create Skill -> Enter a Name (Italy News) – > Select a Language (English (UK)) ;
This should match your Alexa device exactly. English US and English UK are different !
Select Flash Briefing -> Create Skill
Add an error message , like “Sorry, failed”
Press “Add new Feed”
Fill in the fields, like preamble, name, Update frequency. The Content type should be audio, and the feed URL should be the Heroku Url above.
Then, from your alexa app in your phone, click More -> Settings -> Flash Briefing, and your new source should be in the list
Now, you’ll have a new news source when you say “Play News” to Alexa
