TWiT Flash Briefing on Google Home?

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#1

Hello!

I just made an account here to ask this question/give a suggestion. I apologize if this has been talked about before, but I couldn’t find anything about what I wanted to discuss specifically.

I currently use an Amazon Echo daily for the “flash news briefing” feature that includes a daily updated clip from a TWiT podcast. I would prefer to use a Google Home as my daily briefing, but it’s nowhere near as good as the Echo. Let me explain.

I want to use a Google Home because I subscribe to YouTube Music and it’s not natively available on my Echo. The only thing stopping me from buying a full Google Home (I currently have a Mini only) is that the briefing is nowhere near as good. When you add “Tech News Today” to your “news shows” on Google Home it plays the full podcast and not a curated clip from one of the many great TWiT podcasts like the Echo briefing does. That just doesn’t work for me as the curated clip is so much better.

So my question/suggestion is this: Would it be possible for TWiT to make a news show for Google Home that is just the curated briefings that are already made for Echos? Or is there an exclusivity thing that stops them?

Any insight would be much appreciated. I apologize if anything I said is confusing, I’m not the best at explaining through text.

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#2

Amazon makes it very easy to create snippets for the Flash Briefing. That’s why we do it.

If you want something short for your Goog you might try adding the TWiT Bits feed. They’re samples from all our shows. Kind of a best of.

I don’t know of a Flash Briefing like facility for Google but if you do let me know and we’ll get on it!!

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#3

In the Home app, click on your avatar in the top right, and select Assistant Settings. Scroll way down into All Settings, and select News. Click on Add News Sources. You’ll find “Tech News Today”. It used to be the daily content that Megan and Jason did. It became the weekly version when the switchover happened, it seems. I presume whatever you’re doing here to link this one episode a week could be replaced with a daily feed in the same way that Amazon gets it.

It’s part of your “Good morning” routine, or you can ask “Okay Google what’s the news”.

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#4

Wow!

Leo, thank you so much for the quick reply and information. I definitely didn’t expect that.

So if you go into the Google Home app (I’m on iOS) and tap “Routines” and then “Good morning” for example, you’ll get to a page that shows the steps you have added to that routine. I have one added called “Play the news” in my “Good morning”.

If you tap the “>” next to “Play the news” you get this screen where you can “Add shows”:

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The only show TWiT has listed (I think) is “Tech News Today” which you can see I have added. The thing is that “Tech News Today” just goes ahead and plays the full episode when you have that added.

Would it be possible for you to add a “show” called “TWiT Briefing” that is just a feed of the snippets you create for Amazon? Then I could add that to my routine and it will (theoretically) play the same up-to-date clip each day when I say “Good morning” to Google Home.

#5

Yes, this makes sense and I was replying before I saw your reply, I apologize. I haven’t listened to what the “Tech News Today” was playing in a while (a year or two?) since I first tried mirroring the function of my Echo with my Google Home. When I initially did it, I figured it was the same curated clip feed, but I was surprised when it was just a full episode and then kind of left it alone until I just asked about it today.

#6

@PDelahanty can you check this out? Let’s add TWiT Bits audio to the Google Good Morning choices!

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#7

I’ll check this out and figure out how to get TWiT Bits added.

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#8

I looked a couple of days ago when I was changing mine and there seems to be one for TNW. TWIT bits wouldn’t make sense because it plays only the most recent. You should do one that summarizes what happened in TWiT each day. Didn’t you used to do something like that for Alexa?

#9

The cool thing about how Echo briefing currently works is that it is (seemingly) a curated clip from a wide variety of shows that is updated daily. The clips are usually based around one topic and seem to be relevant and I love that. It also gives me a slice of a variety of podcasts throughout the week which I love.

#10

Ok, that would still be better than the TWiT Bits feed.

#11

We record those Flash Briefings after every show. If you watch live you’ll see us doing it. I’ll have to see what Google allows. If they support it we can do the same.

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#12

Interesting, thank you for clarifying. I would have never known because I don’t watch live usually, but I’ve enjoyed the briefings for years. I need to watch live to see that in action to understand it more. I assumed someone reviewed the daily shows and picked a topic to clip, record an intro, and add to the next day’s briefing. They are legitimately the only reason I keep my Echo.

Google does seem limited in that department compared to Amazon, but I appreciate you looking into it, it means a lot.

#13

What happens when this plays “Tech News Today”? I wasn’t able to get that to actually play anything. Tech News Today hasn’t existed for several years and is now Tech News Weekly…so is it playing that?

I can’t find any way to submit new news sources here. I think it’s getting this list of news sources from Google News and taking ones that have media, but I haven’t been able to find any definitive answer yet on submitting new news sources.

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#14

I just tried it and even though it says “Tech News Today” on my Google Home app it DOES play “Tech News Weekly” and it is seemingly a full episode.

Thank you for looking into this further, I really appreciate it. I’m happy to help in any way from my end.

#15

@PDelahanty Maybe this will be helpful: News on Google Assistant  |  Google Developers

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#16

A “yesterday on TWiT” Briefing would be great.

#17

Thank you! That’s exactly what I was looking for! All I had been able to find last night was that it MIGHT be pulling from Google News. (I did submit TWiT for Google News consideration last night…but it says it will take up to 2 months for approval!)