BotCube

Messenger platform team and the founder of Octane AI (bot building platform) Matt Schlicht recently had a conversation about the future of bots. What's interesting, they don't see Messenger bots going WeChat's way: recreate all transactional experience in one huge platform. Instead of this, they see bots more conversational and personal. I think we'll see some Facebook M implementation right inside Messenger platform later this year. "Imagine bots that can send updates to your friends for you, tell stories that change based on your reactions, give fans an inside look at what happens backstage at a concert or an awards show. That’s where we want to take bots next. We want to move beyond transactional experiences and make them conversational and personal." https://messengerblog.com/bots/building-bots-for-messenger-tips-from-the-experts-octane-ai/

Article containing 19 tips/best practices for building chatbots. I wish I had read it years ago and hadn’t made a lot of mistakes such as relying on messenger features which aren’t supported across all the devices, not giving a user an ability to cancel or go back to the main menu at any moment of interaction and many more common and straightforward UX mistakes. “Must read”, especially for novice bot builders, it'll save you a ton of wasted time and energy :) https://goo.gl/3rd7fk

Great post from the team behind Swell about how they managed to copy their native iOS app with all it’s features into a chatbot within Facebook Messenger. Thanks to webviews ( HTML5 windows) it’s no longer just light-weight apps integrated in Messenger, but it gives developers a fantastic playground for creative ways to rebuild fully functional iOS and Android Apps within the Messenger. https://goo.gl/j8knPp By the way, they just hit 2mln users and got featured on Product Hunt today, you can find and support them here: https://www.producthunt.com/topics/bots/newest

Today I want to share with you one book I’m super excited about. It’s called “Create Convincing Computer Conversations”. The company which stands behind it is pullstring.com. It’s one of the leading companies in the field of computer conversation in text, voice, and video through a combination of design and technology. Since the launch in 2011 they have raised ~45mln$ in funding and created many mindblowing bot stories. I wish I could share more details, but it’s out of my channel format. So, I highly encourage you to read the book and the article below about its idea. The book itself is super interesting, useful and not long at all (20 pages). It is also attached in the message below. #books Article: https://goo.gl/WP0g0i Book: https://goo.gl/hFIC2g

#botoftheweek Sunday is a great day to announce a new topic here! Actually, I see a lot of bots every day (this is my job, btw), but I do NOT see a lot of great bots or usecases for them on a daily basis. Most of them are just a crap. That's why every week on Sunday I will post some bots that nailed it. Today is not an exception! SignBot is a Messenger bot for creating email signature in a few simple steps. This is a real ass pain — I tried several tools to do that and they were either too complicated or pretty expensive. This bot is easy to use, free and neat. You can check it here: https://m.me/255239914908100 This is how generated signature looks: https://goo.gl/oRMtcU

If you’ve always wanted to get started with Machine Learning but the course from Stanford University seems to be too complicated for you, here is the first article from the series called “Machine Learning for Dummies“ which allows you to start learning and practicing easily using JavaScript. First topic in the article is the raw basics of Neural Networks, Genetic Programming and Evolution. Just don't be afraid to start :) https://goo.gl/jril4U

Have you ever been in a situation when you want to show someone an impressive case of a chatbot but can’t come up with any cool one because most of bots are shitty? Yesterday I’ve found a massive list of high-quality bots from top brands like Uber, H&M, CNN, Domino’s Pizza, Victoria’s Secret and many-many more. Did you know before that “Zootopia” movie had its own bot? Me neither. I spent about an hour looking through the list and learning how the world top brands use chatbots. I suggest you to do the same not to build yet another crappy bot. http://www.topbots.com/brands/

Predictions about bots evolution in 2017 from the Facebook Messenger engineering team lead. Most of them are quite reasonable (less conversation/more structure because it’s harder to type than just tap, more webview experience to increase user input) and one of them made me feel curious - it says that bots will unlock better discoverability (unified place to find, rate and interact with a bot). Quite funny to hear such a “prediction” from the team behind Messenger, right? ;) https://goo.gl/CxYdmE

Super interesting article from the author of @denissexy channel about what the world will be if we’ll have one app (Telegram in this case) for all your needs, kinda “mobile OS Telegram”, and how will it change the way we launch apps. He also shared his point of view on the very popular topic “Will the apps be replaced by chatbots?”. It's long, but definitely worth reading during the Saturday cup of morning tea :) EN: https://goo.gl/RLD9Sc RU: https://goo.gl/FHWJLS

Angel investor and Gigster CEO Roger Dickey recently released a Pitchbot - bot which simulates a pitch meeting with an angel, incubator, seed fund or VC firm. You respond to multiple-choice questions about your product, team, growth and values as you try to impress the investor. If your answers show you know how to build a great startup, you win a mock-up funding term sheet. So will your pitch earn you a massive valuation from the top VCs? Or do you need to go back to the drawing board? Pitchbot lets you know before you’re in an investor’s office — in the real hot seat. http://pitchbot.vc/

From January 9 to January 18 more than 2500 people from 65 countries voted 5373 times for the best travel, productivity, social, e-commerce, entertainment, and news chatbots! Meet the winners of the 1st ChatBottle Awards 1. The best Travel bot - Instalocate 2. The best Productivity bot - Meekan 3. The best Social bot - Foxsy 4. The best Entertainment bot - BFF Trump 5. The best E-Commerce bot - chatShopper 6. The best News bot - TechCrunch And, the Editors' Choice Award goes to Swelly https://chatbottle.co/awards/1st-chatbottle-awards-2017-winners