Google Assistant can make it really easy to get quick updates on news topics you’re interested in, but the results aren’t always the most accurate. Today, Google is revealing a new publisher tool that may help with that called “Speakable.”
Asking Google Assistant something like “what’s the latest news on NASA” triggers the response of pulling an excerpt from a news article along with the name of that publication. It’s a good way to get quick answers, and Google wants to improve the feature’s accuracy and reach.
Built in collaboration with Schema.org, Speakable is designed to make it easy for publishers to specifically call out sections of an article that would be good for Assistant to read aloud in response to a question. This applies to Assistant on all platforms, including speakers like Google Home.
[Speakable] identifies sections within an article or webpage that are best suited for audio playback using text-to-speech (TTS). Adding markup allows search engines and other applications to identify content to read aloud on Google Assistant-enabled devices using TTS. Webpages with speakable structured data can use the Google Assistant to distribute the content through new channels and reach a wider base of users.
The new markup is available now for eligible publishers on schema.org, and developer documentation is also already live.
Once publishers begin implementing the feature, it should result in Assistant responses that can more accurately answer a question. More information is available on Google’s technical documentation. For now, this is only available in English in the US.
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