All filler, no killer.
It’s been almost 5 months since Facebook released its Messenger API and despite tens-of-thousands currently being developed the patience of the media and even some developers appears to be running thin.
If like me you’re actively following bot news and communities, you’ll have likely seen an increase of reference to the hype-cycle, the bubble and teething trouble perpetuating the idea that we’re heading towards a decline in interest of our virtual friends.
Nothing could be further than the truth — and here’s why.
The most common misalignment on bots is that there’s no one definition being alluded to across online media. Bots, chat bots, messenger bots are all different things to different people.
“Bots have been around for years!” say bot purists — which is true. But never have they been accessible at the scale they are now through Messenger.
“Let’s call them Apps unless they actually chat!” say chatbot developers. But others argue that conversation actually gets in the way. (I won’t reopen the GUI Vs DOS debate.)
For most consumers, “Messenger bots” are frankly the only bot they’ve been introduced to so obviously as “bots”. It’s important to remember Slack’s user base, whilst seriously engaged in the platform, is but an ant to Facebook’s universe.
So which bots sit where in the hype-cycle? Frankly, no one knows. It is impossible to say until we have settled on a paradigm.
The world is changing at a furious pace and we’re heading towards an integrated society, the connected world, the era of automation — whatever you want to call it.
For this movement to happen effectively, our devices need to learn and respond accordingly. User-preference needs to be remembered across interfaces and on the basis of learning or input, devices need to proactively communicate with the all systems and processes that make shit happen.
Some of these interfaces will no doubt be apps in their traditional sense, some will be bots, some will even come as hardware. They’re all ultimately fulfilling the same prophecy and we’re not even close to understanding just how much of our life they’re going to be part of.
The hype-cycle ends when innovations reach a plateaux and for bots (in all their glorious forms) that’s way into the future.
Peak interest, however, is another story and in my opinion we need to remove our Node-tinted-spectacles and see these tools through consumer eyes to understand just how early we are on this journey.
It’s fair to say that bots in their traditional sense have yet to see the light of day enough to warrant any real hype of their own merit. Messenger’s scale and advancements in NLP have together created the ticking clock against which they’re now being measured.
For those aiming to impress consumers with a conversational experience — good luck, you’re taking on the biggest most productive challenge. The NLP and AI available to developers on a budget is ugly. Wit.ai Facebook’s championed partner is perhaps the poorest element to the API’s beta-toolkit yet advancements here are perhaps the most important in the application of virtual assistance.
For now, we should be placing conversational experiences largely within a beta category. For consumers conversational bots are either taken with a pinch of salt, a bit of fun (you’ll be surprised or possibly turned-on by the things people ask the bots when they think no-one’s looking) or not in which case they rarely live up to expectation.
For native bot developers Slack feels a good starting point. Its audience are savvy and report a more favoured response to the value of bots within channel but Slack is limited in numbers making huge traction difficult. For investable traction Messenger is the clearest option but here it’s tough.
Promoting any new product is a huge challenge tactically and financially– today’s required ad budgets are a stretch for most start ups and if we’re being completely honest, Facebook have yet to take Messenger Bots to market which would help.
The release at F8 was beta and still feels below the line when you compare the audience of the event to the billions that use its products. And as long as there are users who have no idea these bots exist, start ups face a double challenge — to get their brand noticed and help their community adopt the technology along the way.
Until there is a killer bot that gets this job done, peak interest in Messenger bots hasn’t and can’t be reached. And that’s not happened yet.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some brilliant bots out there and very compelling use-cases for brands. Big brands heavily invested in social media have massive potential in this space and should be considering releasing something, pronto.
Getting involved whilst Messenger is in beta puts early adopters in a position of stregnth and testing bots for longer in a live environment will ultimately help them advance beyond competitors.
Customer service, productivity, lead-gen and subscription service cases are looking healthy. And in cases where brands are integrating bots with their site a number of nice experiences are unfolding — Skyscanner & Trulia spring to mind.
But don’t expect big numbers yet.
There’s still so much to play for in the native space. Investment in native bots is on the rise as messaging integration Smooch capitalised on $10,000,000 investment this month.
Though in this instance I suggest that brands failure to adopt comprehensive strategies for messenger platforms and millennial audiences (at pace) is actually placing a limiting factor on hype.
What we need is a killer. Something to slash its way rabidly into the everyday lives of a bloated audiences. Facebook appear to believe this will come from service based solutions for enterprise brands. This is viable though Investors seem to favour bots that are closer to revenue generation, sales support and marketing.
What will the killer look like? If I knew I’d be pitching it.
But with a new common interface comes great opportunity and perhaps something akin to Butter –a productivity bot with $3,000,000 seed from General Catalyst could define a change in social behaviour as the line between our professional and personal lives across social blurs.
Or perhaps personal fin-tech assistants like Cleo (UK) and Penny (US) will revolutionise the way we manage our finances. I love the promise these two bring.
Either way, the killer will be something we never really expected and until it’s arrival we’ll remain in an exploratory phase, our movement yet to be defined.
Keep calm, carry on.
