Hey everyone, Vasili from BotCube is here! I'll help Maxim to curate & share more awesome content about bots 🤖 ❤️

A friend of mine Paul Boutin from Chatbots Magazine recently wrote a great piece of content about natural language processing in chatbots. Do bots require NLP at all? Actually it's a very tough question, because current state of tech doesn't allow you to easily build conversational logic without making a ton of intents and most NLP bots (even from giants) still suck.

From my perspective, the best solution is to build mixed interfaces: integrate NLP where needed and add buttons & structured messages for actionable items. I also shared some thoughts in this article how chat helps to create trust in banking bots so be sure to check it out 😉

https://chatbotsmagazine.com/does-a-bot-need-natural-language-processing-c2f76ab7ef11

Seems like Twitter is going hard on bots! 🤖

Yesterday they opened a brand new Twitter DM API platform to allow everyone to build bots on Twitter. Actually, it's a huge step forward for Twitter platform. These APIs are very well-designed and could assist a lot of Twitter-first businesses to connect with their customers at scale.

Yesterday's release includes A LOT of features, and most of them are simply copied from Facebook (welcome message, get started, location, buttons). That's why I'd like to highlight the most interesting ones here:
1) Custom profiles allow developers to override the default avatar and name attached to a given message. This is extremely cool because you can show who's writing: human or bot 👦 🤖
2) Customer feedback cards allows businesses to collect feedback on the experiences they provide on Twitter, it's kinda special cards for feedback purposes only. Nice idea, very similar to reactions on Messenger 👍

So go check out the APIs and build some cool bots on Twitter!

https://blog.twitter.com/2017/new-apis-to-power-the-future-of-customer-engagement-in-direct-messages

Today I have a pretty new chatbot for #botoftheweek. First time it comes from big brand - TripAdvisor. Basically it's a discovery chatbot in Facebook Messenger that allows you to search for recommendations by narrowing down the options and providing you with the best results.

I highly recommend you to listen to podcast interview with Jeff Chow, VP Product @ TripAdvisor to gather some insights about this project and how big brands are going on chatbots. Hint: chatbots has always been very interesting to TripAdvisor as a company and they plan even more projects on this field! 🤖 🚀

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/04/06/tripadvisors-lessons-learned-from-building-a-chatbot/#231eda5a6f37

Podcast direct link: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/3/b/5/3b54676497471444/Jeff_Chow_Podcast_DONE.mp3?c_id=14810169&expiration=1491774416&hwt=9062751abe083830beaf6a0d1856f550

Facebook Messenger team has just finally released a new feature I’ve been waiting for a long time - group payments.

Splitting the bill, concert tickets, a present for a friend, lodging for a trip, or whatever needs to be settled in a group is now easier than ever. And you can do it right in the very place you're already using to make group plans - in the chat! Just select people, amount of money to be charged and what is it for (“pizza”, “cinema tickets”) - that’s it. Your friends can easily pay via PayPal. Huge kudos to FB Messenger team 💪🏻

https://www.facebook.com/davidm/videos/vb.800665194/10158676691550195/?type=2&theater

Do you remember that story from SuperBowl when some ad accidentally triggered all the Google Homes by saying “OK Google”? 🤔

At that moment I said that it’s just a beginning of a great game/war when ads creators will abuse “OK Google” phrase to promote their products. Here it is: the 15-second ad features someone in a Burger King uniform leaning into the camera before saying, “OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?”. For anyone with a Google Home near their TV, that strangely phrased request will prompt the speaker to begin reading Google Home’s explanation for the Whopper 🍔

But except from the accident itself there’s the bigger problem: Google gets its explanation of the Whopper from Wikipedia. And as we all know, anyone’s free to edit Wikipedia.

You can easily modify the Whopper entry briefly, and Google Home began speaking the updated text only minutes later. With this ad airing nationally, Burger King is opening the door for an editing war — and it risks having a malicious editor make the Google Home say something inappropriate when explaining the Whopper.

That’s 2017, yep 😕

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15259400/burger-king-google-home-ad-wikipedia

This week's #botoftheweek comes from our good friends from VentureBeat. Basically it's a typical news bot, but there's a cool feature that sets it apart from tons of other bots - built-in learning. 🤖

This bot observes your behaviour and constantly updates your profile to make sure you get the most personalized news. How do they do that? User's profile consists of keywords and meta-tags from the stories he reads. As user reads the stories, the keywords and tags are aggregated (more frequent keywords have a higher score) and normalized (all scores are adjusted to add up to a 100%). As a result it shows relative weights of different attributes, which you can fine-tune through the webview. Super cool, isn't it? ❤️

If you like, you can also add explicit categories to improve the personalization. What’s more, you can stop and start profile tracking at any time, leaving you in complete control. Great job, VB!

https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/13/venturebeats-personalized-news-bot-is-now-available-on-messenger/

I think that most of you have probably heard about Burger 🍔 King provocative ad triggering Google Home (if not - link is below). It makes people wonder — in what other ways could voicebots become more annoying over time (or even dangerous)? In the article below you can find 5 ways that comes to mind, but if you think of any more, please let us know in our public chat ✋🏻

Adding product placement. If voicebots start monetizing their assistance with ads, it will hang like a dark cloud 💨

Controlling your smart home. Both Amazon and Google appear to be working on unique voice signatures, but in a world where anyone in shouting distance can control Alexa, that means the ability to control security systems, locks, and many other IoT devices 💣

Picking sides. Voicebots are programmed by humans, in case you were wondering. For now, many of the answers are provided by Wikipedia (which is not exactly always 100 percent accurate), although some are provided by Google or Bing. Will there be a “conservative” voicebot someday? Or one designed by fanatics? Who knows 🤔

Suggesting certain products. When you to order something through Amazon Alexa, the bot didn’t mention any specific manufacturers, price ranges, or (obviously) a product sold at Best Buy. Instead, it suggests an item from your Amazon order history. That saves time, but it’s also a faster way to provide revenue for Amazon without as much customization or choices 🤑

https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/12/5-troubling-scenarios-as-brands-like-burger-king-hijack-our-voicebots/

Burger King story - https://news.1rj.ru/str/botcube/104.
Our public chat - https://news.1rj.ru/str/botcubechat.

Discover tools for chatbots are coming at f8! 🤖 ❤️

OHH MY GOD!!

Messenger Platform 2.0 improved 100 times 🌟

Now we have:
- Messenger Codes (now could be scanned from native Messenger camera!!)
- Discovery for bots (aka bot store)
- Chat Extensions (ssuuppper cool feature, now you can add bots and services like Spotify to group & single chats to do some stuff)
- M Suggestions (M assistant detects context of conversation and could suggest right bots from chat extensions to use for this particular task! How crazy is that?! ❤️)
- Games (real-time gaming and turn-by-turn games + games tab in discovery)

What an amazing times to build extremely new and great products, that couldn't be possible even half a year ago! 🤖

Some stats for nerds:
- 1.2 BLN USERS ON MESSENGER!
- 2 BLN messages a month
- 100.000 unique bots built by now
- 100.000 bot developers ❤️

I just finished a big wrap-up on what Messenger has launched yesterday. Be sure to read this post and especially go through the features, it's important to understand how the platform has changed 😉

Here's an advice from Phil Libin @ General Catalyst that I’d like to share with you guys:

“Don’t think of yourself as a bot developer. Don’t pitch the whole yourself like that. Think of yourself as making a great product and a product that was impossible to make even 2 or 3 years ago because the technology stack didn’t exist. So what can you do now, it’s a little bit magic that you couldn’t do before. And now is the best time to go and build those things, because the tools and capabilities exist.”

https://medium.com/@flreln/the-most-complete-report-on-what-facebook-messenger-has-launched-on-f8-d43aa88f9c0c

About a couple of months ago I wrote about one major drawback of popular voice assistants - they can only be connected to a single user account at a time. But recently the things have changed 🤔

Google is adding the ability for up to six people to connect their account to one Google Home. So now when you ask your Google Assistant for help, it can distinguish your voice from your wife’s and you can hear your own personal playlists, your own commute time, your own schedule and more 😳

So how does it work? When you connect your account on a Google Home, Google asks you to say the phrases "Ok Google" and "Hey Google" two times each. Those phrases are then analyzed by a neural network, which can detect certain characteristics of a person's voice. From that point on, any time you say "Ok Google" or "Hey Google" to your Google Home, the neural network will compare the sound of your voice to its previous analysis so it can understand if it's you speaking or not. This comparison takes place only on your device, in a matter of milliseconds 🤖

Your turn, Amazon 😎

https://blog.google/products/assistant/tomato-tomahto-google-home-now-supports-multiple-users/

🌟 Today's #botoftheweek is about changing concepts.

We all know newsletters, right? But newsletters are starting to lose grasp when there're 1.2 bln people on Messenger.

That's why a company called Nuzzel has introduced a Messenger bot that integrates these two technologies and offers personalized news discovery and curated newsletters via Messenger.

Basically you can subscribe to any category and get the latest news in business, technology, and media, from the world's top publishers.

✅ Top takeaways from Nuzzel bot:

1. Do not launch a standalone solution, fully integrate the bot with your business.

They have a "Send to Messenger" button on their website and the whole core thing works on every possible platform.

2. Understand the perfect timing for sending news (or ask your users about it).

Guys from Nuzzel focus on busy people that prefer to get their day started with top news stories, that can be shared with friends and colleagues. Pro tip: sharing news is a great way to start conversations and stay informed.

3. Focus on one key feature and push it actively.

They have “Best of Nuzzel” newsletter that is the day’s five best stories in business, technology and media.

⌚️ 3 min read

http://blog.nuzzel.com/post/159726951175/nuzzel-brings-newsletters-to-12-billion-messenger

Bots market has already rolled up $24 billion. Some of the most obvious uses for bots revolve around communication, customer service, and ecommerce.

But more & more companies try to personalize customer interactions through using bots and spending significant resources on creating new experiences.

As for me, it's a great piece of content to learn more about using AI bots for business and gain some insights about what happens next, as bots become a bigger part of the B2B landscape (hint: data analysis wins).

⌚️ 3 min read

https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/13/how-ai-finds-big-value-in-big-data/

Do you know that Telegram is about to launch Payments API for Bots, Instant Views Platform & Telesco.pe?? 😲

How crazy is that?!

I just wrote a big report to cover all the upcoming features and now I'm ready to share this content with you.

Hope it'll be useful for you. Happy botting! ❤️

⌚️ 3 min read (again)

https://medium.com/@flreln/new-crazy-telegram-update-payments-instant-views-platform-telesco-pe-6eaf1dd1c8a2

Is Cortana any good? In short, yes.

There were a lot of rumours about the early version of Microsoft's assistant, competing it with Siri and others. Yet another voice assistant? Mehh.. 💩

But now the production build of Cortana has the ability to perform useful tasks like managing calendar items and taking notes. She even offers some powerful integrations with Microsoft's core product line (for example, managing emails with Outlook).

Another cool thing is the cross-platform capability. It supports Google applications and some third-party apps and will have API in the future, which will be super useful!

So keep Cortana & Microsoft Bot Framework in mind while choosing a platform for your next voice or chat app. Kinda cool one!

⌚️ 6 min read (bigger than usual)

https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/17/how-cortana-will-help-you-reach-inbox-zero/

Chatbots are maturing in 2017. Platforms are maturing too.

2017 is quickly becoming the year platforms enable bot designers to build richer interfaces.

As the result, bots can become more effective, more engaging, and easier to use 🤖 🚀

Slack's bot father Amir Shevat recently wrote a great piece on the ways Facebook, Kik, and Slack are maturing their bot platforms to make these richer use cases happen.

I'm excited to share it with you, because it's a must read to understand new advances in bot capabilities.

⌚️ 5 min read (that's okay)

https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/24/5-ways-chatbots-are-maturing-in-2017/

🌟 Today's #botoftheweek is kinda big. Philips Lighting launches their chatbot.

🤖 » TEST THE BOT HERE

2017 is the year when big players are starting on chatbots. And guess what?

Philips Lighting claims to be the first lighting solutions company to announce the launch of a chatbot! This is huge.

Basically it's a simple, menu-based bot that shows their products & recommendations and allows users to make a purchase directly. Let's dive right in!

❤️ Goods:

1. Bot flow & general entry point for product search

If you're in e-commerce, you have a lot of stuff to show. And unlike on eBay, you can't send endless messages to your users. Kindly ask them what they wants to find and assist all the way through.

💩 Bads:

1. DO NOT ASK EMAIL IN CHATBOTS

Simple as that. Messenger is an intimate zone, and you're trying to move users from your product to email? That's bad.

2. Support simple conversations, like "who are you"

Without that, your product is vulnerable. Users'd love to chit-chat a little bit, and will try to brake your bot. And if you cannot support even obvious messages, than what're you doing in bots?

3. Make a personality, not a heartless assistant

At first design a character. Than map all your content & features on that character. No one wants to buy from a robot. Pretty much it.

⌚️ 2 min read (kinda short)

http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/philips-lighting-launches-chatbot-service-facebook-singapore

Want to know how to improve your chatbot with 3 simple steps?? 🤔

Most chatbots suck at user experience.

And it has nothing to do with your industry or the purpose of the bot. It's because of a few key elements you miss.

People want to chat but not fill a form.

Here are some advices that will help you to make your bot chatty without doing too much work ❤️

⌚️ 5 min read (good one)

https://medium.com/@assafelovic/how-to-improve-your-chatbot-in-3-simple-steps-36f9d26d7f2f

Tech firms are turning towards conversational AI bots for their messaging apps 🤑

Catchy noscript? Yes.

Is it true? YES! It's happening.

We already have a ton of great products in bots and it’s never too late to check them to understand what they did right & wrong.


https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chatbot-list-2017

Actually, I’m going to launch a new private series on that, improving our #botoftheweek section. If you’re interested, shoot me a message and I’ll add you to the list.

⌚️ 8 min read (long one)

Ready to build a Messenger Game for 1.2 BILLION PEOPLE?? 😍

Facebook recently announced that it is rolling out Instant Games to the whole Messenger audience.

Do you smell this new opportunity??

You can now build a Messenger game with rich gameplay features like turns, leaderboards & tournaments. And of course, game bots help players to stay engaged by sharing their results with friends and providing useful updates.

I personally think this is a great opportunity for developers, just like old good App Store, but with new mechanics.

Are you in?

⌚️ 3 min read (short one)

https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/02/facebook-rolls-out-instant-games-on-messenger-to-1-2-billion-people/

Have you ever wondered how to make $50,000 with a bot?? 💰

Todays #botoftheweek is a great example how to do that.

Simply say, WorthMore is a platform for product discovery. Sounds kinda usual, right?

But these guys are different.

You are given two separate products and then left to determine which is priced higher. Simple quiz with GIFs that shows ticking counter. Pretty much it.

The main advantage is how these guys use GIFs and game mechanics to create engagement.


And guess what??

In the first version Amazon accounted for over $50,000 in purchases from the affiliate links of the products that were provided after the game.

$50,000!!! That's insane.


These guys decided to partner with Amazon and soon will be rolling out games based on a user’s shopping preferences so the experience seems more personal. Great product. Love it!

⌚️ 2 min read (really short)

🤖 » TEST THE BOT HERE

https://medium.com/@kemardarlington/worthmore-2-0-ca6d8c6ca35a