mendax.org

Sitting around in IRC whenever I’m idling at my desk, I’m well aware of all the crazy scripts people put together to power their IRC bots. These types of bots have been used by the computer-savvy for some time, now, but as useful as these bots are, and as great as IRC is, it’s not a chat medium used by the average computer user. It’s no real surprise to me, then, that the flexibility of bots has entered the realm of more common chat mediums like AOL’s Instant Messenger.

Currently being tested by small user groups as part of an eBay/AOL advertising deal, and already rolled out on less well-known sites, IM “bots” are placing information at user’s fingertips outside of the web. By allowing users to add specialized, non-human Buddies to their Buddy Lists, computer users will be able to make queries about products, web updates, etc. by “chatting” with their newly-added IM Buddy.

The potential usefulness for these types of bots is pretty significant. Everything from weather queries to automated web updates based on chat messages could be done with well-developed bots, and so long as decent development kits hit the market, I expect the use of IM bots to only grow with time.

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