Amazon is rolling out a news aggregation app for Fire TV and tablets
Beginning today, Amazon will be rolling out a news aggregation app for Fire TV users in the U.S. The app serves up a customizable news experience from a number of different outlets. The list includes nearly 20 names (a number of which are Yahoo sub-sites), including bigger partners like Reuters, CBS, Sports Illustrated and HuffPo. The available outlets are as follows,
- CBS News
- Reuters
- Huffington Post
- Bloomberg
- Yahoo News
- Yahoo Finance
- Yahoo Sports
- Yahoo Entertainment
- AOL News
- Al Jazeera
- People
- Entertainment Weekly
- Sports Illustrated
- Cheddar
- Newsy
- Wochit
There are a number of big names missing, of course, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal< NPR and CNN all spring to mind. Though admittedly these sorts of content deals can be tricky, through a combination of paywalled content and the kind of flash news feature that's required to serve content through a smart assistant. Amazon promises to "continue to expand its news content selection over time."
Once the outlets have been chosen, users can access it by asking Alexa to "play the news." Alexa-enabled Fire tablets will be getting the app at some point in the near future.