The battle of “bots” is officially launched. After Microsoft it two weeks ago, it was the turn of Facebook to build on the development of these software that simulate human conversation, thanks to recent advances in artificial intelligence.
to mark the F8 conference for developers organized by Facebook from Tuesday to Thursday in San Francisco, the company CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of a programming interface providing businesses with the tools to build these modules and integrate easily into Messenger.
The social network is looking to make its messaging a super platform for all online interactions, including commercial transactions. In the new Messenger, a new category “business” and will appear below the box “people”. “It should be as easy to interact with a company with a friend,” said Mark Zuckerberg on stage. “I’ve never met anyone who likes to be hung on the phone with a company, or download an application for each new thing,” he said.
online shopping
David Marcus, vice president for messaging products, presented some examples of applications already developed, including the purchase of clothing or Spring shoes with a kind of Instagram shopping, or the consultation of the weather across Poncho.
Mark Zuckerberg also unveiled a software developed by the CNN news channel . It sends a short news summary then provides the recipient to know more, either by reading the entire article, or by asking questions. Experienced a form of journalism recently by the new application site Quartz economic information.
The Menlo Park company makes tests in this area since this summer, through M, a virtual assistant developed by the team of Wit.ai, the artificial intelligence startup acquired by Facebook last year. But the feature was previously available only to some “beta testers” in Silicon Valley. For a year, she also experiences the reservation within Messenger with forty companies, Uber for booking VTC at Hyatt Hotels and KLM for the trip.
by opening its platform to all developers, it now has to move up a gear: “you take the 50 million enterprises active pages on Facebook for one billion messages per month to these companies by Messenger, and you get a incredible platform, “declared David Marcus.
WeChat, the competitor
But Facebook is not alone on this niche. Asian WeChat messaging is very advanced in this area. Microsoft it was launched with great fanfare two weeks ago and Slack professional collaboration tool also provides bots helping to meet its expense or to ensure the execution of a “to-do list “. Mail Kik popular with teenagers as it has a “store bot” for sending Vine videos or receive Sephora makeup tips without leaving the platform. And Google will also work on the subject.
The business model of these new services yet to be determined. David Marcus presented some tracks such as sending messages Sponsored while promising that “the user would still have the control, which can choose to block bots messages.”
a new type of ads will also appear on the Facebook wall with one button calling to start a conversation with the bot. Its cost will surely be higher than a traditional advertising. These new tools open anyway monetization opportunities for Messenger and its 900 million users, which could also be applied to Whatsapp, the other messaging tool acquired by Facebook in 2014.
on the occasion of the conference, the company’s Menlo Park also announced that the distribution of videos” live “, a feature added last week, would be possible not only from a smartphone but also to other electronic devices, such as drones. She also announced the launch of its own camera filming at 360 °, 360 Surround Facebook, hoping to boost this new format on its website
Anaïs Moutot
.
No comments:
Post a Comment