Facebook Hands Out Secret Chat SDK For Virtual Messenger Bots (thestack.com) 17
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook has started giving third-party developers unannounced access to a new development tools kit which allows them to build their own Messenger bots. The Chat Software Development Kit (SDK) enables developers to create interactive experiences and virtual chat bots which can automatically respond to users, delivering information, location services, returning images and even managing payments. Facebook has not yet publicised any details of the documentation for the SDK, instead sharing it secretly with select developers via PDF.
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But instead of taking over the world by force, Facenet simply annoyed the shit out of people with notifications until they surrendered.
Ditched FaceWaste three years ago and never looked back.
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Messenger, AI and Chat Bots (Score:2)
This looks like a partial back-story for Mark Zuckerberg's AI announcement.
Chat bots with a high quality Voice Recognition and Text to Speech engine fit into this model very easily. Make the bots backed by an AI engine and you have Mark's solution.
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I'll take the consideration even further.
1) Similar to Amazon Echo - Skills allow integration of voice commands with third party services (called Skills). This ties into the third party - off the shelf parts.
2) Facebook just acquired wit.ai (http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-buys-voice-recognition-startup-1420496634), a voice recognition company
3) Messenger already has text to speech
4) Amazon Echo is a simple command language - https://developer.amazon.com/p... [amazon.com] Echo is (really cool) but arguably dumb -
Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Fine... (Score:1)
If it can only *respond* to user messages, that's good--if it can generate them, it creates much more risk for abuse. Responding to user messages can be useful to the user. But the risk FB runs if they open it up too much is that in monetizing their very popular chat feature too directly, they're going to risk pushing people toward other platforms.
Incidentally, I used to have a small perl script run an IM bot when I went on vacation, to see who could tell the difference between me and the bot. It would k
Great... (Score:2)
Not Strictly Mobile Anymore? (Score:2)
When Facebook Messenger was announced, it was clear that only mobile devices could use the service. Additionally, the criteria for creating Messenger content was also fairly high. As a result, I wonder what the adoption rate of Messenger has been since its launch.
By opening up to BOT creation, there is now the potential to create potentially useful services for Facebook mobile users. This could be a good thing. I can think of several services and business models that could benefit from Messenger platf
Good news everybody - Hedonismbot is available! (Score:1)