Facebook today launched two powerful ways for people to find Messenger bots to use, addressing the discovery problem that’s plagued the platform’s 100,000..
Facebook today launched two powerful ways for people to find Messenger bots to use, addressing the discovery problem that’s plagued the platform’s 100,000 developers.
Facebook’s new Chat Extensions lets you use Messenger bots in group chats so you can watch a sports game’s play-by-play together from theScore’s news ticker bot, collaborate on building a Spotify playlist or get a consensus on booking a flight through Kayak. OpenTable, the NBA, Food Network, WSJ and other developers are also launching group bots today. Apple Music is coming soon.
TechCrunch reported last month that Facebook would launch these group bots today at F8. Until now, bot experiences were just you and the bot. But that puts a ton of pressure on the bot to seem human. Chat Extensions pose them more as assistants or tickers rather than conversation partners, better matching what’s feasible with today’s technology.
The second big piece of bot discovery news is the launch of a Discovery tab on Messenger, where people can see their recently used bots, browse bot categories, see trending experiences or search for specific bots.
