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Chat App Kik Beats Facebook To Launching a Bot Store (thenextweb.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the beat-to-the-punch dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Next Web: "Messengers are the new browsers and bots are the new websites," Kik's Mike Roberts told The Next Web. The messaging app that's big with America's youth has launched a bot store and developer platform to support it. The Kik Bot Shop offers mini-apps that you can add to your account and either chat to directly or use in your chats with others. For example, at launch, there's a bot that inserts relevant Vine videos into your chats at your request, similar to Giphy's insanely popular Slack integration, and if you do prefer GIFs, Riffsy (which also powers Twitter's GIFs) has a bot for Kik. A Weather Channel bot can tell you the forecast on demand or send you a regular update, and if you're looking for beauty tips, Sephora's bot has you covered. There are 18 bots in the store at launch, but Kik is keen for developers to build more.

9 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Kik, bringer of chaos by zdzichu · · Score: 3

    Don't forget, Kik is the company that indirectly started last shitstorm in JavaScript hipsternet: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

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    :wq
  2. Hold on by Barny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wait a second, I am having trouble following. So there are bots that can be used to trigger messages and insert information, in chat... what is this, IRC?

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    ...
    /me sighs
    1. Re:Hold on by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      The short answer is: Yes.

      The long answer is: [bot insert]

    2. Re:Hold on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      IRC was doomed to failure because it was not controlled by a marketing company.

      Anyone could run an IRC server. Anyone could use any client they wanted. Anyone could write a new client or server if they wanted.

      Not sufficiently monitized, and too much control in the hands of users. Thus, people moved to services that give them less control and monitize them more.

    3. Re:Hold on by tom229 · · Score: 2

      When did IRC fail? I literally use it every day. It's still one of the best tools available for group chatting. And, as you mentioned, it's not centrally monetized or controlled so it will likely continue to exist way past kik or whatsapp fizzling out to whatever the next trendy chat software is.

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      If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    4. Re:Hold on by trawg · · Score: 2

      Wait until you hear about Slack.

  3. Re:Am I the only one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, because the rest read the title

    Chat App Kik

  4. Welcome to 1998 by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    We were writing AOL/MSN bots back in 98. No one used them.

    1. Re:Welcome to 1998 by dysmal · · Score: 2

      Microsoft did that recently but didn't have the outcome you expected