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

🤖 Pullstring & Skype has launched the new Doctor Who Bot!

Skype bots are becoming more & more popular and big brands are starting to bet on them too. And here's the proof.

One of the most popular British television series Doctor Who teamed up with PullString to launch a main character as a bot on Skype!

How cool is that!?

⌚️ 2 min read (again)

https://blogs.skype.com/news/2017/05/03/take-on-the-quest-to-save-the-universe-with-the-new-doctor-who-bot/

Can bots really help you dress better? With new Echo Look, definitely yes!! 😱

For many people, getting dressed is a stressful and confusing time-suck.

The concept — make getting dressed easier with the help of a digital authority — isn’t new. The first one was created in 1995.

And there's a place for more, because last week Amazon announced their "style assistant" — Echo Look. It’s basically an Echo combined with a hands-free camera controlled by your voice.

So now there's new opportunity to build a skill for Alexa that may help thousands of people to look better every day. Go do it! 💪

⌚️ 7 min read (long one)

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/3/15522792/amazon-echo-look-alexa-style-assistant-ai-fashion

Don’t Miss A New Opportunity to Build Bots For Bing


It appears that bots will soon be integrated into Bing search results. This news will likely be announced next week at the Build conference.

Verification can be found in the Build schedule, which includes a session noscriptd “Chatbots on Bing.com”. The session invites developers to “learn how chatbots enhance the Bing experience and how you can add your custom bots to Bing.com”.

It means that you can start building bots on top of the super big search engine very soon. That’s very solid.

Keep an eye on this, I’ll keep you updated.

⌚ 3 min read (kinda short)

https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/04/microsoft-is-bringing-bots-to-bing-search-results/

🌟 Microsoft announced HUUUGE updates to their Bot Framework!

A lot of new opportunities are now open for bot developers.

In short, they've added payments, website integration (superb cool!), and improved discovery (you can publish your bots on Cortana, Bing and Skype for Business). That's awesome.

The Bot Framework is now used by more than 130,000 developers. And I'm 100% sure this new update will rapidly increase this number.

⌚️ 8 min read (kinda long, but super important)

https://blog.botframework.com/2017/05/10/Build/

🚀 Boost your Chatfuel bot with advanced analytics!

If you do not use analytics in your bots, I highly recommend you to do that.

It will help you to save a lot of time and money to check which features are useful for your users, and which are not.

And if you’re building bots on Chatfuel, now it’s super easy to integrate analytics into your bot! That’s a big move for Chatfuel & Botanalytics, saving tons of time for their users, which tried a lot of ways to do that in code.

⌚️ 3 min read (announcement)

https://chatbotsmagazine.com/chatfuel-and-botanalytics-integrate-to-bring-advanced-analytics-to-chatbots-17d176062896

P.S. if you’re not on Chatfuel, here’s a list of all analytics for bots, choose one and enjoy!

🤔 Thinking about building a travel bot? Read this first.

Travel market is a great opportunity for bot developers and there’re already a lot of good players there.

So I highly recommend you to learn their experience before going into that. It'll help you to avoid mistakes they made and choose really useful features for your bots.

How to find them? Here's an article for you.

⌚️ 6 min read (not close enough to dive into the topic)

https://chatbotsmagazine.com/are-social-chatbots-the-future-of-hassle-free-travel-e043c7feea93

💊 Bots in medicine? That's a big market and today's #botoftheweek proves that.

If you want to use medical cannabis, it’s hard to find a professional who can advise you which strain to use, how to take and in what dosage.

And that's a real problem.

Guys from Bakas built a chatbot for that! It answers general questions like ‘what kind of cannabis do I need to treat anxiety?' and provides user with useful information on how to use cannabis medicine.

Numbers? Since launch on April 20, the bot has provided more than 5,000 recommendations to users!! That's huge.

Good idea, great market, right execution. Pretty much it.

⌚️ 3 min read (short one)

Chat with the bot - https://m.me/ABBIhealthbot/

Read the article - http://www.kgw.com/news/local/marijuana/tigard-doctors-educating-medical-cannabis-users-through-chatbot/439417370

API.AI “Small Talk” is now Open! Why is it a Really Big Deal?

Here at BotCube we’ve built a lot of bots during the last year using both api.ai and wit.ai as NLP providers. Most of the time we’ve been choosing api.ai because of one reason — module called “Small Talk”. It allows you to easily import a lot of predefined answers for simple questions and phrases like “Hi!“, “How are you?“, “Are you robot?“, “What’s your hobby?“, “How old are you?” and many-many more (about one hundred actually).

A week ago guys from api.ai made their Small Talk NLP module open and in this article our I’m going to tell you why it’s a really big deal for all the bot builders. The article was also just featured on Chatbots Magazine.

⌚️ 6 min read (kinda long, but totally worth it)

https://chatbotsmagazine.com/api-ai-small-talk-is-now-open-source-why-is-it-a-big-deal-a39c54f89d85

Amazon is exploring new ways to reward their developers

They have quietly launched a new program that will directly pay skill developers building high-quality Alexa skills. Today, however, Amazon is selecting skills from those voice apps categorized in the “Games, Trivia, & Accessories” category only.

As more developers join the program and find out how much they’re earning, it will be easier to figure out what sort of scale Amazon is using to determine its payouts.

The program begins this month, and developers will be alerted by an email from the Alexa team if their skill qualifies for inclusion.

⌚️ 3 min read (short one)

https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/16/amazon-begins-rewarding-top-performing-alexa-skill-developers-with-direct-payments/

P.S. If you're looking for different ways to monetize your bot, take a look at the Monetization section here.