June 30, 2002

8:01 PM

The bad news: SmarterChild, one of the first instant message bot applications, is dead. The good news: ActiveBuddy, the folks that created SmarterChild, will be releasing a toolset to create new bots.
posted by mathowie (9 comments total)

And good riddance. May he join Clippy from "Office" in clip art hell.
posted by scottymac at 8:05 PM on June 30, 2002

Sheesh, Scotty. Clippy was intrusive. You have to *want* to talk to SmarterChild, and I always found him/her/it very helpful.

It's nice the tools will be released. I've heard you can get the same results with applescripts, but never figured out how.
posted by jragon at 8:44 PM on June 30, 2002

this adds a few steps to finding movie times
posted by howa2396 at 10:43 PM on June 30, 2002

Now, if only Google had an IM bot like the one in #mefi... but, there are some using the API.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 5:38 AM on July 1, 2002

For the 9th time, do these companies pay AOL a royalty on their use of AIM?
posted by ParisParamus at 10:27 AM on July 1, 2002

For the 9th time, do these companies pay AOL a royalty on their use of AIM?
posted by ParisParamus at 10:27 AM on July 1, 2002

For the 9th time, do these companies pay AOL a royalty on their use of AIM?

Why should they? They are doing the same thing the rest of us do with AIM, except that it's a bot rather than a person.
posted by ljromanoff at 11:49 AM on July 1, 2002

Why should they? Because they are a commercial venture benefiting from AOL's AIM. I'm curious from a legal standpoint.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:59 AM on July 2, 2002

Because they are a commercial venture benefiting from AOL's AIM.

That's not reason enough to justify a royalty.
posted by ljromanoff at 9:43 AM on July 2, 2002