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AIM Bots: Useful or Spam?
An anonymous reader writes "Imagine my surprise this morning when AOL AIM popped up a window and introduced me to two bots that it automatically added to my buddy list. " Two seperate issues- one is simply auto adding robots to your friends list, which is very uncool. The second is a corporation using bots in an official capacity. This is an interesting trend, although technically speaking, not that far from the eggdrop of old.
I see this as the future of advertising. Everyone is now using GAIM or some other alternate client, so people miss all of AOL's annoying (yet profit-generating) ads.
AOL had to think of something new -- some way of profiting off of their protocol. Sticking interactive ads, that people think of as their "buddies"! What could be better?
These bots sneak in to your list, pretend to be your friends, and if you send them a message, BAM! Custom ads delivered right to you.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
I'm just surprised that AOL has taken this long to begin sending you advertisements via AIM. They have a near-monopoly on IM communications...
AOL has 56% last time I looked. 56% a monopoly does not make.
As an aside, can we please move out of the dark ages of text chatting? Multiple, incompatible formats on different networks, without publicly available bridging is pathetic. Please everyone, switch to Jabber and set up a bridge until it gains most of the market. It's as if MSN users could not e-mail AOL users who could not e-mail Yahoo users. Remember when the internet used to be about standards and used for communication, instead of lock-ins and sending you ads?