Peter Buch from Swelly (https://www.swell.wtf/) says hi to our community!

Hey guys,

Just wanted to thank you for being here.

It was a fabulous 6 months journey from 0 to 1354 followers and I believe we can double this number in next 3 months.

We are working hard to provide you with the best content from this space every day, and it’s so exciting to see how we are growing together.

Our next milestone is to put more effort into writing guides, how-to's, and original content for you.

Also you will see Q&As with top people from bot space, famous founders, experts and investors.

And there's one more thing.

We're launching something new very soon.

Let's keep it in secret for a little, but I promise, you'd love to join it.

Happy Botting! ❤️

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/

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/

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 🙂

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/

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

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

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

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 🙂

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 🙂

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 denoscription, and I’ll choose the best one to write a post about 🙂

I haven’t found any compelling bots for today’s #botoftheweek.

But I want to share with you a trick we use to improve our bots onboarding & engagement 5x. It works 🙂

It’s based on a habit creation model called HOOK, described by Nir Eyal in his book “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” (highly recommend to read).

Let’s say we are building a community manager bot, which helps to engage community members in Slack.

To implement the HOOK model, we need to activate a habit-forming process, which consists of 4 steps:

1. Trigger

The trigger is an activator of a behavior.

It could be either internal or external, and usually, in bots, internal triggers (such as boredom or curiosity) are activated by external triggers (such as a direct message from the bot).

The goal of the trigger is to drive the user to take action using the product.

In our case, the trigger is hidden in an onboarding message:

“Greetings, @flreln! Welcome to BotCube, the top Slack community for bot designers.”

”My name is Botty, and I’m a bot, designed to help show you around and get the most out of your membership.”

”Say “help” to get started or “tip” to get today’s tip about bots.”

The last message here is an example of a good trigger because it has 2 key things:
- Shows that the reward is variable (“today’s tip”);
- Is actionable and provides the user with a choice.

2. Action

The action is a simple thing user needs to do to get a reward. Like hitting “Show me” button or opening a notification.

Once the user has done the intended action (in this case, typing the “tip”), he’s dazzled by what he sees next.

3. Variable reward

The reward is the realization of the value from the action.

Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don’t create desire and don’t surge the level of dopamine in the brain.

In our case, the reward is a random useful tip about bots that user gets after he typed “tip” message to the bot.

Variability and reduced accessibility here multiplies the effect, creating a frenzied hunting state, activating the parts associated with wanting and desire.

4. Investment

The last phase of the HOOK is where the user is asked to do a bit of work.

Here we can benefit from the reward we just gave him and ask him to take action that makes the service better with use and generates future triggering opportunities.

In our community bot example, we can promote a survey or explain any other feature we want the user to proceed to.

These investments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through the HOOK loop.

That’s it.

I highly recommend you to implement this approach in your bots and just see what happens next.

You will be surprised :)

How could I miss it??

A friend of mine Stefan published an incredible list of best AI cheat Sheets (Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Deep Learning & Big Data) earlier this month.

It’s not directly related to bots, but I do recommend you to have a look if you’re going to build something that includes machine learning.

Enjoy your evening!

https://becominghuman.ai/cheat-sheets-for-ai-neural-networks-machine-learning-deep-learning-big-data-678c51b4b463

Do you remember that Black Mirror episode which tells the story of a young woman whose boyfriend is killed in a car accident? Later on she discovered that technology now allows her to communicate with an artificial intelligence imitating him.

Seems like it’s a reality now 😲

Video below is a story behind Replika AI. Replika is a chatbot that creates a digital representation of you.

It's strange and fascinating - but the story behind it is even better.

Eugenia Kuyda’s best friend died in 2015. Using a chatbot structure she developed, she entered their messaging history into a Google-built neural network, creating a bot she could interact with. It was the earliest version of Replika, a bot that, as you interact with it, turns into a digital representation of you.

This video makes me think about one interesting point nowadays - what it means to be human in a world increasingly filled with robots 🤖

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQGqMVuAk04

Hey guys,

I have HUGE news.

We’re launching Bot Designers, Developers & Marketers community on Facebook.

This group is to share information, tactics, and strategies regarding creating bots.

No questions, no promotional content, no links to websites or email forms.

Only valuable content: interviews with industry leaders, 2-3 how-to materials every week, guides, bot reviews, and daily posts with tips & tricks.

Whether you're a designer, marketer, developer, or founder, this group is for you to learn, share, and grow.

Why create this group?
1. Create the one-stop resource for bot building
2. Provide a valuable opportunity to learn from industry experts
3. Giving back to people is super important

You can only succeed if you help others succeed, and that’s what we want to live by in this group.

I would love to see you there, right in the first members.

You can join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/botdesigners/

There was no news from Facebook Messenger Platform team from April.

But here it is - Messenger Platform 2.1 🚀

Two main features are:

1. Built-in NLP support.
Starting today you can directly connect your Facebook bot to Wit.ai (startup Facebook bought 1.5 years ago) without coding.

It'll automatically detect meaning and information in the text of messages that a user sends before it even gets passed to the bot.

Isn't that cool?

Nice move by Facebook to popularize Wit.ai as an NLP provider - make it native.

2. Handover protocol.
This protocol enables businesses to create multiple experiences within a single bot (connect multiple apps to one Facebook page).

There were a lot of dreams about one main BotFather that can handle all the requests and redirect you to different bots.

Seems like we're a step closer to such a world right now.

I genuinely think that a "Handover protocol" feature is opening a huge amount of opportunities that were impossible before.

Already thinking about applying it to the bots we've built.

You should think too! 💪🏻

https://messenger.fb.com/blog/messenger-platform-2-1-brings-new-tools-to-enrich-conversations/

I suppose that most of you do know Statsbot.

For those who don’t know - it’s a Slack bot that allows you to get reports from data sources like Google Analytics, Mixpanel and others using natural language.

But here is a new big player here - Google.

They've just started rolling out a new Google Analytics feature - "ask a question".

The aim is to make it much easier for people throughout an organization to be able to get the information they need without having to rely on data analysts or needing a deep familiarity with the Google Analytics interface.

So, you can just go to your Google Analytics panel and ask: "What's my revenue last month on mobile vs. desktop?".

Yea, that simple.

Working example GIF: https://goo.gl/oBBpjM

More about the update: http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-ask-questions-intelligence-219961

Google launches a great program for AI startups!!

These startups usually lack experience and data to build a good prototype, that’s basically what Google wants to fill up with this program.

They are aiming to address these needs head-on with specialized data sets, simulation tools, and prototyping assistance, which is super great for an early stage startup.

Another good point for already established companies is that startups accepted will have access to Google talent, including engineers, IP experts, and product specialists.

The Launchpad Studio will be based in San Francisco, with additional operations in Tel Aviv and New York City. Eventually Toronto, London, Bangalore, and Singapore will host events locally for AI founders.

If you’re building something relevant for this program, I’d highly recommend applying (no matter are you an early stage startup or an established company).

Apply here: https://events.withgoogle.com/ai-studio/registrations/new/details/#current-step

More on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/26/ai-studio/