Yesterday during the F8 conference Facebook revealed Messenger Platform which lets developers build chatbots. Yes, now you can do anything just by sending chat to the bots!
You can do various things with these bots! You ask for a date about the weather in your location, the latest news, shopping, order flowers for your lover and mores. I even think about build one for this website and BSID so people can get update ASAP in their Messenger. Maybe after I finish my internship, who knows.
I’ve seen tons of screenshots in the internet and it looked pretty promising until I tried it myself. But well, I can see the potential in these chatbots to be honest.
So I tried using one of the available bot at this moment; Poncho, not in the phone Messenger but in the web. But well..
Me: Hi
Poncho: *making cat noises* *explaining what he/she is*
Me: Tell me the weather in London!
Poncho: *pretending not to see my chat* Anyway, why don’t you tell me where you are? I need to know so I can give you the forecast. If you’re on a phone you can send me your location, too.
Me: *Going offline*
Effective? Efficient? For asking weather I can say no. I rather just pull out my phone out of my pocket and see directly the weather from Google Now or Beautiful Widget. I don’t need to open Messenger and then ask the chatbot. Unless it sends me the weather automatically (Imagine the chatbot is like your lover “Honey, it’s going to rain. Don’t forget your umbrella or you will get sick by tomorrow”).
But you know these bots can bring new experience in other aspects like shopping, making reservation or maybe even dating? Imagine there’s a bot which will match you with someone who is 100% your type!
I want someone who loves Britney Spears, eats clean, does sport at least 3 times a week, has brown skin, dark hair, and a normal BMI
and the chatbot be like “You’re a match!”
Chatbots itself is not really a brand new thing. The difference between this new unleashed chatbot from FaceBook and the normal chatbot from the last decade is the approaching. Before chatbot was only for, well… chatting. But now the option is unlimited. Siri itself is one type of a chatbot. I mean you can interact with her! And also don’t forget Taylor Swift by Microsoft. Oh oh and the old JAR chatbot from my Sony Ericsson. I already forgot the name. It was pretty epic though.
With chatbots, human will never be alone again… Right?
And with the platform from Facebook there will be a huge number of developers who will support this innovation and make it the new black in IT. I mean who is not here for something like the cute innocent chatbot Simsimi who can order you a pack of rubber bands? Interested? Why don’t you build one for yourself!
The innocent Simsimi
