InfoBots are coming. I believe we've touched on this before, but now it seems to be moving from concept to reality: Instant Messenger "buddies" that are actually bots. You send them an IM with a question, such as "Hey pal, what's the weather in
Thunder Bay, Ontario?" And it IMs you back with the answer, almost instantaneously. No waiting for messy web sites to load, no funky searches to run.
ActiveBuddy has been the most, um, active in developing the technology, but they've been working on it forever without anything to show to the public. Now, it's out there, somewhere. CNET is reporting today that an ActiveBuddy beta bot has been live for a few months; you can play with it right now if you know its name. (And if you do know its name, a tip would be appreciated. I've been jonesing for this for a good while.) A more public version is supposed to be out in a few weeks. Here buddy buddy buddy...
posted by aaron
on Apr 25, 2001 -
17 comments
One of the best movie news and gossip web sites,
Roughcut.com, has just closed, a victim of the AOL Time Warner layoffs. Luckily, the single best thing about Roughcut, David Poland's daily column "The Hot Button," will live on via
Poland's personal site.
posted by aaron
on Jan 30, 2001 -
3 comments
