VentureBeat’s Bots Channel tracks all the important and interesting news related to the exploding field of bots and messaging. And each week we select the top stories and present them in in our free weekly newsletter, BotBeat. We include news stories by VentureBeat staff, guest articles from leading figures in the bots community, and a good number of posts from a wide variety of outlets. You can subscribe to our BotBeat newsletter to receive this information in your inbox every Thursday.
Here’s this week’s newsletter:
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One of the more popular posts this week was 5 reasons chatbots will revolutionize the way we do business. Another popular post was by Slack’s director of developer relations Amir Shevat in which he explored the 7 things about bots most people get completely wrong. Shevat feels pretty strongly about #2, the myth that bots are easier to build than apps.
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In A.I., deep learning startup Nervana was acquired by Intel for more than $350 million, and Interactions raised $56 million to advance its efforts to bring NLP and AI to customer care. We also learned about funding for bot and A.I.-maker Koko, which plans to use A.I. to put human empathy inside every virtual assistant. In the live chat room space, Boomtrain acquired Nudgeshop and Smooch raised $7.6 million.
Finally, we said this last week but we’re going to continue to repeat it: We want to hear from you. We’re better with you. Send guest post suggestions to John Brandon and news tips to Khari Johnson.
From the Bots Channel
Studies show people use only 5 apps on their smartphones
According to a recent survey based report from Forrester Research, US and UK smartphone owners “use an average of 24 apps per month but spend more than 80 percent of their [in app] time on just five apps.
President Obama now has a Facebook Messenger bot
President Obama has read 10 letters a day since entering office in 2009, he said. Until now, letters could be sent in the mail and messages through the White House website.
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Koko raises $2.5 million to put human empathy inside every virtual assistant
Immersion in a 360-degree landscape can, indeed, create empathy, but so too can plain text, argues the startup Koko.
7 things about bots most people get completely wrong
With every new technology and paradigm, there are a lot of misconceptions. Amir Shevat, Director of Developer Relations at Slack, sets the record straight about the most common ones concerning bots.
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4 questions chatbot entrepreneurs need to ask themselves
Roger Chen from Genacast Ventures says anyone making a new chatbot — those who want to actually turn their bot into a business that generates revenue — need to ask four critical questions.
Chat company Smooch raises $7.6 million
Often seen in the bottom right hand corner of websites, Smooch conversations can automatically be transferred and synced between Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Twilio, and other chat platforms.
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Beyond BotBeat
Can chatbots help build your next website? (TechCrunch)
Small businesses have their pick of affordable DIY website-building platforms, but these “no coding skills required” platforms struggle to acquire and retain customers.(via TechCrunch)
6 reasons to think very carefully before using chatbots (Inc.)
The more you wait and watch, the less you’ll be able to not only be where people are, but also remove friction in driving sales and customer happiness. (via Inc.)
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Would you want to talk to a machine? (BBC)
We might regard our semi-intelligent smartphone assistants with a mixture of affection and frustration, but our attempts at getting answers from them are going to be just the start of a much bigger conversation. (via BBC)
Introduction: Deep learning for chatbots, part 1 (Open Data Science)
Many companies are hoping to develop bots to have natural conversations indistinguishable from human ones, and many are claiming to be using NLP and Deep Learning techniques to make this possible. But with all the hype around AI it’s sometimes difficult to tell fact from fiction. (via #ODSC)
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