ActiveBuddy has added five new AIM bots, of various levels of usefulness.

March 16, 2002 8:23 PM

ActiveBuddy has added five new AIM bots, of various levels of usefulness. ELLEgirlBuddy for teen girl stuff; TattleTeller for Oscar®-related news and gossip; AgentReuters for news and stock quotes; NoBoundariesTV as a tie-in to the useless WB "reality" show that seems to focus around Ford trucks; and My eBay Buddy for, well, make a guess. Fair warning: They're all beta.
posted by aaron (12 comments total)

Here's their official ActiveBuddy PR descriptions:

=> ELLEgirlBuddy is the first instant messaging agent for teenage girls. ELLEgirlBuddy offers direct access to ELLEgirl.com's teen-savvy news, information, and trends in fashion, entertainment and beauty. She also has games and contests, plus she's got personality!

=> TattleTeller is your Hollywood connection. Get news, celeb bios and gossip on the Academy Awards(r) as soon as it's dished out.

=> AgentReuters specializes in news and financial information, with stock quotes, charts, indices and more.

=> NoBoundariesTV tells you about the WB's inspirational adventure series brought to you by Ford. Guided by extreme sports champion Troy Hartman, these brave souls will travel on an empowering 30-day journey about teamwork, leadership and adventure.

=> "My eBay Buddy" gives you the edge in becoming a savvy buyer, seller or bidder! Get tips and tidbits. Play games. And learn how to trade practically anything on earth at the World's Online Marketplace!

They're all AOL/AIM only. And the eBay bot's links have a tendency not to work properly. I haven't really played much with the others, except for AgentReuters which, while sort of useful, doesn't seem to offer much of anything that you can't already get from SmarterChild.
posted by aaron at 8:26 PM on March 16, 2002

Interesting idea, although none except "Agent Baseball" truly interest me. A "BlogBuddy" would be neat, maybe.
posted by jonmc at 8:29 PM on March 16, 2002

In other bot news: GooglyMinotaur, the Radiohead info bot, has been retired. It's still live on AIM, but if you try to talk to it, you just get back a piece of PR telling you to visit SmarterChild.

Also, I discovered TheBrandy411, a bot all about the pop singer Brandy. If you're into that sort of thing, which I'm not.

Anyone know of any other new ones out there?
posted by aaron at 8:50 PM on March 16, 2002

I never saw these before. Neat.
posted by coelecanth at 9:33 PM on March 16, 2002

Anil Dash was keeping track of this corner of technology for a while. I suspect he hasn't lost interest.
posted by dhartung at 12:28 AM on March 17, 2002

There is a blog buddy. Go talk to BlogBot. He'll be your friend and post to your blogger based blog all at the same time!
posted by nedrichards at 4:11 AM on March 17, 2002

If they could make the ebay buddy remind you when a favorite auction was about to close, or when someone outbids you, or even tells you if a particular item has just been put up for auction, then I'll be impressed. And I guess there's software out there that can do all that for me anyway, and the idea of doing it on a centrally located machine, for thousands and thousands, is a little too intense.

As it is, the ebay buddy seems fairly, if not completely, useless.
posted by crunchland at 6:17 AM on March 17, 2002

DISCLAIMER: Self-link. (Please don't pound on me for it.) I made a program which allows to IM Bots to talk to each other. Here's their first conversation.
posted by rex at 6:39 AM on March 17, 2002

This is a great service for me. I have AIM on my cell phone, and I know I will use Agent Reuters to get stocks instead of paying Voicestream $.50 per quote, which is what they charge.
posted by DragonBoy at 7:59 AM on March 18, 2002

Sadly, I haven't kept up with the state of the art in bots. I do still have a boatload of 'em on my buddy list, though. These are the ones (many are now dead) I had a few months ago:

aagabe, AgentBaseball, AlicebotNet, bizzarokiehl, bloggerbot, gabrielshear, googlematic, GooglyMinotaur, hitormiss0rg, hitormissorg, lagpartybot, Longwind, MailSystem, memepusher, metalynxbot, mylesdannoying, mylesdbot, mylesdbot2, publicspy, SmarterChild, spyonit, spyonit2001, sweethappyfriend, userlandalert

And there are more at botspot and no doubt yo.
posted by anildash at 5:39 PM on March 18, 2002

You can play trivia with this bot: gamegoattrivia
posted by mmangano at 5:55 PM on March 18, 2002

You can play trivia with this bot: gamegoattrivia
posted by mmangano at 5:55 PM on March 18, 2002