What happened to popular IM bot Spleak?
Posted by absorbation on Sat 08 Aug 2009 (15:13 GMT) (3612 views)
Spleak was a very popular bot for MSN/ Windows Live Messenger and AIM, focusing on celebrity news and gossip, before expanding into the likes of sports, gaming and television. She was noted for being a bot that attempted to be accurate in artificial intelligence while adding a personal and feminine touch to her answers with some success. Spleak's popularity was noted throughout its years, but now the IM bot is no where to be seen. When messaged she simply replies: "Time to say GOODBYE!"

So what happened to Spleak? Well back in April last year the Spleak Media Network expanded, which appeared to invest in a new business model concerned with better and richer advertising strategies that would expand into web widgets and user generated content through the media company Hearst. Clearly the company behind Spleak had expansionist plans for their wide user-base.

However, evidence suggests the company wasn't profitable and Spleak appears to have shut down without any press release or message from developers. Even when messaged, she gives no explanation. It appears Spleak Media Network has been closed, leaving all traces of Spleak and its content unavailable. Even their website is inaccessible.

So there is no direct explanation, but inductive reasoning suggests Spleak Media Network wasn't profitable and fell on its back. If anyone can provide any further details shedding light on this story I will be very grateful. It's a shame to see the end of such a popular and unique IM bot for its time, particularly with its huge popularity around the world.



E4 Skins Messenger bot
Posted by absorbation on Thu 22 Jan 2009 (21:44 GMT) (2137 views)
Here at Messenger Stuff we are down with the kids. We know all the "hip" and "cool" things you want to hear about what's going on with the most "gangster" interest ever: MSN/ Windows Live Messenger. Enit.

In all seriousness, the UK has an extremely popular show with teenagers known as Skins. It has also moved its way over to the US and other western countries too, and I'm hoping that post of you would of at least heard about it. Anyway, there is now an interesting, interactive way to get more in-depth coverage of the show as it happens: by using a Messenger bot.

Every Thursday night at 10, whilst Skins goes out on E4, Skins Messenger will bring you closer to the show than you have EVER been before. As you're watching the show, we'll fire out messages to you with loads of extra info on the action taking place on your telly box, as well as cast & crew interviews and the bonus videos you won't see on TV. There will be details of the tracks played as you're watching the show in real time, and between episodes, you can pop back to see a preview of the next episode, access the track listings for the previous show and find links to video diaries and behind the scenes footage. And if you miss Thursday night's episode, Skins Messenger will be live for the Sunday night catch-up. Got it?



Skins starts within the next quarter of an hour within the UK, so I'm pushing the email the promoter sent me some days ago. Just add skinsmessenger@e4.com to Messenger to start using the bot.

Visit the E4 website for more details


SPIM bots: A major problem for IM networks
Posted by absorbation on Mon 15 Sep 2008 (17:10 GMT) (1249 views)
Spam. We all get it. Hundreds of emails sent to you every day, poorly written just like this post. They attempt to sell, scam, pester or advertise to you in the most ludicrous ways! Spam has been around for years and has taken over our email inboxes. Quiet honestly it's something I hate, yet don't find interfering. This is because our email clients have been smart enough to detect spam and block irrelevant emails for years now. SPIM, on the other hand, is less frequent but a much more major annoyance.

Messaging spam, as it is also known, targets instant messenger users from usernames it expects to be using a specific service. Bots will then attempt to add you, mimicking as new contacts. Once added them will target ads towards your interests, based on the information where it discovered your email address. Of course they are persistent, and difficult to spot.

The problem has been exacerbated by the increase in Messenger bots, and how easy they are to create and distribute. Over the past few weeks, I've seen several forums posts with people claiming several SPIM bots have added them to Messenger. the andyman himself has had 23 bots add him in the space of 3 days.

Luckily Microsoft have already created a solution, implemented in the new Windows Live Messenger 9. Although the feature is still incomplete, and the version still not publicly available, it is only a matter of time before SPIM bots spread to a wider market. Remember to protect yourself, don't post your IM address or username in a public forum or website, where bots are likely to pick it up.


How to create your own Messenger bot in 5 minutes
Posted by absorbation on Tue 02 Sep 2008 (15:32 GMT) (5568 views)
Messenger bots have become popular over the past couple of years, and are a growing trend for most Messenger clients. Amit Agarwal over at Digital Inspiration knows a few things about them, and has created a tutorial on how to create your own Messenger bot:

This quick tutorial will show you how to develop your own functional IM bot that works with Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live and all other popular instant messaging clients.

To get started, all you need to know are some very basic programming skills (any language would do) and web space to host your 'bot'.

For this example, I have created a dummy bot called 'labnol' that listens to your IM messages and return related search phrases based on Google Suggest. To see this live, add labnol@bot.im to your GTalk buddy list and start chatting.



View the tutorial over at the Digital Inspiration blog



Use Twitter through Windows Live Messenger
Posted by absorbation on Sat 26 Jul 2008 (17:14 GMT) (3537 views)
For all of you who don't know, Twitter is "a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length." Basically it keeps you and your friends up-to-date with each other, you literally tell this service what your doing and others view this on your Twitter page.

The traditional way is to use Twitter via text-messaging, but this new form of social networking has expanded into other services, such as an app for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Now you can use Twitter through Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger and of course Windows Live Messenger using an interactive bot.

Twitt'd requires your username and password, then you're off! It is really easy to use and get a hold of, plus you don't need to worry about wasting text messages. To use Twitt'd for Windows Live Messenger add twittd@live.com as a contact.

Visit the official website
View our Twitter page (yes, we have one)



Introducing Messenger bot Poynt
Posted by absorbation on Sat 16 Feb 2008 (20:29 GMT) (1423 views)
Messenger bots are being made more frequently and also more interesting than ever these days. Poynt is another new bot which I discovered today:

Poynt (mypoynt.com) is a free multimedia local search service that can be used all over North America. You simply add poynt@live.com as a contact to your Windows Live Messenger or poynt on your AOL Instant Messenger and away you go. Once you have specified your search location, you can enter keywords for the businesses and services you need (like pizza or movies) and the results are returned, with those closest to your specified search location listed first.

With the ability to display all kinds of media, like movie trailers, and rich mapping functions inside of Messenger, we know this will be a very useful and handy tool for getting a handle on whatever it is you're looking for, no matter where you go. We are also actively working on making Poynt available across more platforms, including a BlackBerry application, expected to be available later in Q1 2008.



Sounds interesting, and although it is still in the early stages of development it is a very useful bot, despite it being rather annoying to use at the moment.

Visit the Poynt website


If Santa used instant messaging ...
Posted by absorbation on Tue 04 Dec 2007 (22:46 GMT) (1709 views)
Unless you have been hiding under a rock the past month and a half you will know it is the holiday season (I'm tempted to say Christmas, but I'm staying culturally neutral). As you can imagine Microsoft's own Santa bot for Messenger (asksanta@live.ca/ northpole@live.com) is very popular this time of year and some people have found odd ways to make Santa say some rather disturbing things:

El Reg says: pizza (pi)

Santa says: Yum! What do you want for Christmas, El Reg?

El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat so much! You are quite large!

Santa says: My elves will get right on that. And what else are you wishing for this year, El Reg?

El Reg says: Maybe you shouldn't eat it?

Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: No thank you. I don't eat things!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: See if you can get someone else to eat it!

El Reg says: Eat it

Santa says: You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...

El Reg says: You dirty bastard!

Santa says: I think you're dirty bastard.
More questionable replies as reported by other readers:

'cake' or 'snow' -> 'You don't need drugs when you're high on life!'
'you are high' -> 'I like being high!'
'have you slept with Paris Hilton?' -> 'Not yet, but I hope to sometime.'
'crack is awesome' -> 'Crack sure is.'



This isn't really news, but if your bored maybe you too can get chatting to Santa about your wildest fantasies.

Source: mess.be
View a screenshot of the bot in action


MSN Quickbot: an interesting translator/ calculator for Messenger
Posted by RebelSean on Tue 16 Oct 2007 (19:30 GMT) (1371 views)
Flashboy has launched a new bot for your enjoyment. It is a new robot for Messenger that can translate nearly all European languages, get weather on a chosen city and calculate simple mathematical expressions, right from MSN/ Windows Live Messenger. Just add bot@techie.com and starting using the following commands:

  • !en-ge = English to German
    Example: !en-ge This is a test
  • !ge-en = German to English
  • !en-ru = English to Russian
  • !ru-en = Russian to English
  • !en-pr = English to Portuguese
  • !calc = calculates any expression
    Example: !calc (5^3-2.7)*2 + cos(5)^2 - (ln(e))^10)
  • !weather = returns temperature, local time and weather.
    Example: !weather Amsterdam
  • !google = returns the first 10 Google search results
    Example: !google Messenger Stuff
  • !help = returns help message


For more information, support, and a complete list of commands for Quickbot visit MSN Quickbot's homepage.

Visit the Quickbot website



Invasion of the Robots winners!
Posted by absorbation on Mon 27 Nov 2006 (17:50 GMT) (3212 views)
Invasion of the Robots was a competition inspired by the huge success that was the World's Best App. However Messenger bots did not seem to up get as much attention as activities and games, but that didn't stop entries flooding in. The competition itself went from May 15 to September 15 this year, and over the past few months the winners have been analysed for the chance of winning some great prises.

Mess.be got the exclusive here, and so I am directly quoting them below (I've left out the 3rd prise winners):

GRAND PRIZE WINNER:
Yousef El-Dardiry's LiveBot (add livebot@msgweb.nl).

A last minute submission, but the bot's original features like Extended Activities (use specially built activities with more than two people), the Virtual Earth-2-Display Picture converter and WebIM (show your status or chat directly via your site) were good for an Alienware MJ-12 7550 Workstation worth $10k. Juzzi also won last year's World's Best App contest so this guy is on a roll... I wonder if he has any more bedroom space to stock all his prizes?

FIRST PRIZE WINNER:
Ushapriya Narasimhan's Mother Nature (add admirenature@hotmail.com).

This bot wasn't responding at the time of writing, but it's supposed to help you find and research U.S. national parks closest to you, learn what to plant and what's in season, find out how you and your family can help on various save-our-planet projects, etc. A noble bot indeed, and worth a $5000 Home Entertainment System according to the judges.

SECOND PRIZE WINNERS:
Spleak by IMT Labs (add spleak@hotmail.com),
Mobile Record bot by Casey Chesnut (add MobileRecordBot@hotmail.com),
Virtual Secretary by Magnon Jean-Christophe (add secretarybot@hotmail.com),
Dr Phile Knowledge by Robert Johansson (add processbot@hotmail.com),
and Comtec Travel Bot by Aled Jones (add comtec_bot@hotmail.co.uk).

An Alienware laptop, backpack and a $200 Thinkgeek gift certificate is heading their way.


Full list of the winners on the MSDN Forums
Invasion of the Robots website


Spleak competition is over, her real name is ...
Posted by absorbation on Fri 01 Sep 2006 (12:58 GMT) (1771 views)
The Spleak competition has now ended with one luckily winner from the UK. Apparently the popularity of the contest and the amount of guesses entered nearly crashed the server Spleak is hosted on so there must of been more than a few guesses. The winner will receive a brand new PSP from IMT Labs with the guess of 'Marie'.

However, Marie is not Spleak's real name, in fact no one guessed correctly (it's a con!) so I guess we will never know her real name:

Nobody managed to get Spleak's name completely correct although we received tons of suggestions in the name competition! We actually got so many that it nearly crashed our servers trying to get all your guesses out.



View the competition page