AIM / Instant Messaging Robots

Popular? Cool? Annoying? Your thoughts are welcome.

[digitalv]

So today I log in to check my web stats and I'm shown an announcement that they now have an AIM bot. If you add their screen name to your buddy list you can type in your web address and this robot will return the current day's web stats in real time. You have to enter your screen name into the website first (so it knows which account your AIM screen name is associated with) but once that's done you can pop an IM to this robo-buddie and it returns the day's current "Summary" data (Number of Page Views, Unique Visitors, First timers, Sales, etc.)

"Pretty useless" was my first reaction but I figured I would help out with their testing so I set it up. After only having it running for a couple of hours, I gotta say this is a really neat idea. Not just for web stats, but for a lot of things. I've been an AOL instant messenger user for years and maybe I've been in the dark, but I haven't ever seen anything like this before. I looked around and found other bots. Most didn't seem worth adding, but the AOLYellowPages one is pretty cool for finding phone numbers and stuff.

So I started searching Google and found that the general opinion of these robots was pretty low, which surprised me. Am I alone in thinking that bots are cool? Or does bot-hatred spawn from non-programmers who are jealous that someone can make a bot and they can't? :P

[macrost]

digitalav,
I actually am wanting to start on one soon. I have downloaded the sdk, and let me tell you, it seems that creating a bot, wouldn't be that bad.

I think that if you have one that is targetted for your traffic, then it can bring an amazing number of repeat visitors back, especially if you can push url's to them in the content that you feed back to them. ;)

[digitalv]

There is an SDK out? Cool, I thought this was something that people have just been figuring out on their own by watching winsock. I'll have to look around for that! It's kinda funny, my customers IM part numbers to the sales people all the time and the sales rep will look it up in our database and IM the price back to them. I could automate that process with a bot :)

[vkaryl]

Yuck. I don't do animated ANYTHING, and I certainly don't need stats in an IM manner. But then, I don't do IMs either - HATE that.... worse than the telephone....

[digitalv]

I don't know if I like the telephone or not, I never answer it :P

People get so mad about that too... "Why didn't you answer the phone?" Well, because I didn't feel like it? At what point did it become a law that when the phone rings you have to drop what you're doing and answer it? Leave a message, and if I feel like checking the message and feel like calling you back I will.

[vkaryl]

Have to agree on that one, digitalv. The telephone is a CONVENIENCE FOR ME, not a set of handcuffs to chain me forever to the rest of the world.

I have one land-line. I had two, but the fees and taxes got out of hand. So now this one is "on" all the time when I'm home, because my mode for net connecting is land-line dialup. *sigh* *grump* *whine* I have IAM installed, it's $4 US a month added to my phone bill, so is way cheaper than the second line was. I do NOT drop everything to return calls.

I have one cell phone account. The phone is 5 years old, doesn't do ANYTHING except take phone calls, and my monthly bill is $30 US - for 180 minutes peak and unlimited off peak. Our monthly average use is 3 minutes. And THAT'S if one of us is out of town. It lives in my purse or my husband's shirt pocket, turned off. And it doesn't have call forwarding or a mailbox.

They are FOR MY CONVENIENCE. Period. Did I mention I hate telemarketers too? Or would that tend to be a given considering?

/rant-mode off

[digitalv]

Ok so just so we're all clear, vkaryl's vote is against AIM bots, right? :)

[vkaryl]

*snicker* Uh. What part of "NO" don't you understand? (Heh. Yup. Pretty sure that's copyrighted. Hope she won't take me to court.... whoever she is - country isn't really my thing....)

I guess I could tell you how I REALLY feel.... *laughing*

[sidyadav]

For anyone who's wondering, here's the SDK [buddyscript.com] (download here [buddyscript.com]).

Me too working on one, sounds like a not a bad idea :)

Sid