BotCube

Hey botmakers, anyone would like to submit their bot for review in our #botoftheweek series? The offer lasts for an hour. Send me (@flreln) a message with your bot’s description, and I’ll choose the best one to write a post about 🙂

We’re moving to Silicon Valley. It’s happening. We are joining Boost VC Tribe 10 batch with a new product for restaurants and coffee shops. Thousands of startups were met and interviewed. Only 5% of applications were accepted. And we are one of them. How did we get there? It’s just work. I do think it will bring a lot of value to this community because now the possibilities are almost endless. The next interview is going to be with Amir Shevat, development relations director @ Slack 🔥 P.S. Anyone free for a coffee in SF? Let me know: @flreln🙂

Wish you had access to my private presentation about bot UX from my last talk in Munich? It already helped tens of companies to improve their bots, set up a solid design process and fix some critical mistakes in products they build. Here you go: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByKk5oBGxNttUXpYT0tmdmNmclU Because I love you guys 🙂

Just found this awesome list of Best AI and chatbot conferences in 2017. You know what to do ;) https://blog.standuply.com/best-ai-and-chatbot-conferences-in-2017-55f020acb782

Have you ever tried to come up with a list of bot building platforms? I did. If you’re an agency, or a bot platform startup, or a freelancer, or a designer, or just a person who is interested in bots you definitely have to research these platforms and understand them. I made a list by myself and then discovered this awesome public google sheet, that has all the platforms and updates regularly. Enjoy! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bKR7qQlLMP1cL1vYkPWy0pN02EMrJsbPUguFS-_0bcE/edit#gid=0

Following up on the topic, I do believe more in contextual recommendations Facebook announced on the last F8. “As M gets smarter, it will start making recommendations for chat extensions built by developers!” — David Marcus. Just think about it for a second. Your cinema bot could be discovered right in the middle of a conversation about going to the cinema. Isn’t that awesome? More on that topic in my April’s post about F8, might be useful for you guys who haven’t seen it yet 🙂 https://chatbotsmagazine.com/the-most-complete-report-on-what-facebook-messenger-has-launched-on-f8-d43aa88f9c0c

Last week Facebook redesigned ads in Messenger. It’s super cool for bot developers and business owners, especially if targeting is done correctly. Simply say, it’s one more powerful tool to drive audience to your bot, right as conversational ads on Facebook, but more native. But yeah, they are pretty big and a little bit annoying at the moment. Love this phrase from TechCrunch: “Why so big? Did the ad department say they couldn’t sell anything that didn’t completely take over the app? Did they not want to ask for smaller assets after asking for ones at this size to begin with? Do they think people like ads as much as ad people do?” But I do think it’s a way to go, we have to start from something and then incrementally improve it over time. What do you think about Messenger ads? https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/facebooks-messenger-ads-are-bad-and-must-be-destroyed/

Would you like to see an interview with Joshua Browder, the creator of DoNotPay bot? Thumbs up to make that happen! 👍 Also, send questions you’d like to ask Joshua to our @botcubechat using #donotpayama hashtag. We’ll choose best and answer them in the interview 🙂

Today's #botoftheweek is kinda special. Why is that? Because it's not just one bot. It's 1000 bots. Last year Joshua Browder launched DoNotPay, which is a bot that helps people fight their parking tickets. He got big media coverage because the service already saved people $9.3 million disputing 375,000 parking tickets. Could you imagine? Now he's pushing out 1,000 new bots that can assist people in filling out transactional legal forms in all 50 U.S. states and the U.K. That's huge. Why did he do this? As Joshua added new capabilities to his DoNotPay bot, many early users started to become confused about what the bot could actually be used for. That’s the main reason he decided to release as many legal assistance features as possible, branding them as a full-service consumer legal tool. I personally think this is a brilliant idea because people are not struggling to find the right tool anymore. And the bot itself is a fantastic case study for why people should care about AI, even if it’s not revolutionary on the tech side. P.S this one is not a Medium post as I told you a week ago because at the moment I have no access to the bot to test it. Looking forward to getting it very soon 🙂 https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/donotpay-launches-1000-new-bots-to-help-you-with-your-legal-problems/

Messenger chat extensions are new, but already became popular. The biggest problem is that nobody knows how to design them. Why does it matter? Because if you’re not seeing the final user experience, it’s hard to understand whether you’re moving in the right direction or not. That’s why I’m so pumped to share this. Facebook has updated their Messenger Platform Design Kit. They renewed the template, added chat extensions, web views, new generic menu, and many more elements. And now it’s a must for every bot designer. http://facebook.design/messengerkit P.S Cool guys from Botsociety recently published a step-by-step gem on how to design the chat extension using their platform. Definitely worth checking out too. https://journal.botsociety.io/2017/07/design-preview-facebook-chat-extension/