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 on Jun 30, 2002 - 9 comments

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 on Mar 16, 2002 - 12 comments

"What would you like to know? ActiveBuddy finally delivers their first real infobot, AgentBaseball. Use IM to find baseball scores, standings, player stats, player info, team stats, team info, xtra bases, and sports news.

Wanna try it? Just add AgentBaseball to your buddy list and send it a message with "hello".
posted by Brilliantcrank on Aug 30, 2001 - 19 comments

Active Buddy is final Active This 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 on Jul 5, 2001 - 15 comments

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