BotNews

May the Bot API v.3.2 be with you! Your bot can now handle sticker sets: - Create sets of stickers or masks - Rearrange and delete stickers from sets See full changelog: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#july-21-2017

Bot API v.3.1 is here! Build your own robotic police force for supergoups with these new methods for admin bots: - Ban and restrict group members - Promote new admins - Manage group info and invite links See full changelog: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#june-30-2017

The Bot Payment Platform now supports payments from more than 200 countries via 4 payment providers. Three new payment providers have joined the platform since launch: - Paymentwall, a global provider that works in 200 countries - Yandex.Money, well known in Russia - Paycom, popular in Uzbekistan To connect them to your bot, pay a visit to @BotFather > Edit Bot > Payments. Read more about the platform here: https://core.telegram.org/bots/payments We will be adding more payment providers soon.

Finally, our DNS provider fixed it (took them a while, sorry). You may still see some residual issues due to caching, but things will get back to normal very soon.

We're having some DNS issues with our web properties (the issues are not on our side). Messaging is alive and well, but your bot may have trouble reaching api.telegram.org until this is resolved. Working on this, back soon! Sorry about that.

Bot API v.3.0 is here! - Brand new payment platform. Stripe supported out of the box, a dozen more payment providers on the way. See the Telegram blog for details: https://telegram.org/blog/payments - Tools for sending and receiving the new video messages. - The User object now has a field for the user's language. - Bot admins can unban people in channels. - Bots can delete messages. - And more... See the full changelog: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#may-18-2017

Good news, everyone! Your bot can win a grant of $25K or more this year. Pavel Durov will be giving away 1 million dollars to bot developers in 2016. Check this post for details: https://telegram.org/blog/botprize

Introducing The Telegraph API You can now create bots and standalone tools to log in and manage Telegraph posts, and get page view statistics for any post on Telegraph. See the @Telegraph bot for an example. API Documentation: http://telegra.ph/api

Introducing Bot API 2.3.1, a nifty little update that will give you more control over how your bot gets its updates. Changelog: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#december-4-2016

Bot API v.2.3 is now live! - Bot privacy mode updated for the sake of consistency. - Bots can now get messages from channels as updates. - And more. Full changelog: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#recent-changes

In the coming Bot API update, the edit_message parameter in setGameScore will default to True (currently defaults to False). Please consider explicitly passing False in the cases where you don't want the message with high scores to be updated. https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#setgamescore

Meet the first five #BotPrize winners! In this batch we focused on bots that have already gained massive popularity in some markets. The $200,000 that we divided between their developers will help create an even better experience for their existing and future users. @icon8bot – an AI-based bot that allows you to apply great-looking filters to photos using neural networks and machine learning technology. @integram_bot – a bot that allows you to set up integrations with third-party services for developers such as Trello, Gitlab, Bitbucket, and more. @werewolfbot – a ‘Werewolf Game’ bot for group chats that gained popularity in SE Asia long before we launched our gaming platform last month. @strangerbot – a bot that connects two random users to chat anonymously that gained huge popularity after going viral in Southern Europe. @octopocket_bot – a smart-wallet bot that allows users from the EU to transfer money to each other and is integrated into the ATM system of Spain. We will continue awarding creators of great bots this and the following year in $200,000 batches. Read more: https://telegram.org/blog/botprize1