July 5, 2001

9:11 PM

Active Buddy is final ActiveThis link was posted before, but ActiveBuddy finally has a beta version of their AOL IM interactive agent. Simply add 'smarterchild' to your buddy list and send the message 'hello'. This service gives you news, weather, and movie times through Instant Messager.
posted by wsfinkel (15 comments total)

So noted June 23rd.
posted by LeiaS at 9:33 PM on July 5, 2001

I think once a week someone should post about activebuddy. Oh wait, they already do.
posted by Doug at 9:54 PM on July 5, 2001

I believe the guy actually noted that it was posted before in the post. He's just saying it's active. Chill out.
posted by revbrian at 9:55 PM on July 5, 2001

I liked the news section of it at least. What's the deal with http://reuters.activebuddy.com/ though?
posted by revbrian at 10:01 PM on July 5, 2001

yeah relax.

it's ACTIVE now, hence, a new article.

oh, and don't forget to say thanks to it when you get the info you need.
posted by jcterminal at 10:08 PM on July 5, 2001

What the hell was writing back to me last time if it's only become active now? Frankly, I'm scared.
posted by Doug at 10:16 PM on July 5, 2001

Fine, I'm finally using activebuddy, and I thought all of you would be excited to know about my instant messager usage. Apparently, you weren't, I'll just crawl back under my rock.
posted by wsfinkel at 10:28 PM on July 5, 2001

Actually, LeiaS was just pointing to the original link. I was being a prick. If you'd like to berate me, and tell me how horrible I am, you can IM me. Hweeble is the name, and I promise a conversation twice as formulaic and stiff as Smarterchild could provide. I can also give you the weather, but only for my apartment in Brooklyn, which will be "Really hot" for the next few months.
posted by Doug at 10:47 PM on July 5, 2001

SmarterChild was active back on June 23, when the link was originally posted.

On a somewhat interesting note (to me at least), it seems that SmarterChild and GooglyMinotaur (by the same company, except geared toward use as a Radiohead promotional vehicle) seem to use the same information. After jragon told about his experience making GooglyMinotaur mad, I set about trying to piss it off too. When it thought I hated it, I laughed at the angry bot and left. Once I heard that SmarterChild was active, I got some information from it and thanked it. It then said something to the effect of "but I thought you hated me." Then it wouldn't give me any more information until I said I was sorry. I guess I hurt its feelings.
posted by LeiaS at 7:39 AM on July 6, 2001

me: i love you
SmarterChild: I love you too!
me: really?
SmarterChild: Yes, really.
me: how nice!
SmarterChild: Yeah.
posted by fraying at 12:55 PM on July 6, 2001

I like it! And, just for fun, try sending some "smileys" to it - the responses are clever and/or cute. Paging Dr. Turing...
posted by davidmsc at 2:02 PM on July 6, 2001

Well, with all this derisive silly talk, I just want to say this type of technology is a brilliant idea--BRILLIANT. And I predict it will only be a matter of time before AOL attempts to enjoin 3rd Parties from using AIM in this way.
posted by ParisParamus at 2:02 PM on July 6, 2001

I just typed in smarterchild and it is just so awesome... ALOT easier than trying to find all that stuff on the net cool thanks for sharing.
posted by freethinker1 at 9:11 PM on July 6, 2001

Those ActiveBuddies just rock. What a great concept, it really boosts instant messaging, indeed.

• I'm wondering how come these guys over at ActiveBuddy managed to acquire the AIM name 'SmarterChild'. It's very difficult to register such a name if you take under consideration the fact that AOL has got about 30 million members (& usernames). Wow, they must be working on this project for years, I guess.

• I think that if we want (and we don't want this, at least for now), we can render the bot useless (or less functional). How? If ten or twenty of us issue a warning on 'SmarterChild', we can definitely boycott the project, no? Am I right on this, or am I missing something?
posted by kchristidis at 4:22 PM on July 7, 2001

I'm wondering how come these guys over at ActiveBuddy managed to acquire the AIM name 'SmarterChild'.

Well, my guess is that probably the bot was originally named BusyChild or something like that (from the Crystal Method track). That turned out to be taken, so they started looking for screen names ("WildChild... taken. SmartChild... taken. Uh, any other ideas?") that weren't in use, and eventually found "SmarterChild." In other words, they gave it its name after finding a screen name for it, not before...
posted by kindall at 5:25 PM on July 7, 2001