Are we living in Alan Turing’s dream?

If you haven’t heard about it yet, there is a new tech frontier on the tech horizon. It’s beepy, geeky and ai-smartass! It’s Bots!

A ton of articles about bots, chatbots, conversational UI and messaging platforms were written in 2016, 2015, 2014 and even in 2013. However, 2017 is expected to be the year of killer bots. Some say bots are the new apps, some that’s it’s a gold rush, some wonder if it’s yet another hype.

If the subject sounds unfamiliar or, after reading those articles, you started to feel a bit anxious… don’t 🙂

Also, if you think you missed your opportunity because it’s already 2017 and you should have joined the bots game a long time ago, don’t! The fact is this market is still very young. Only recently have companies behind messaging apps started launching bot stores and releasing APIs (2015–2016). Major players like Facebook got into office messengers market in 2016 (workplace, messenger platform)!

Just like iOS apps continued to grow for almost a decade after launch in 2008, bots have a long journey ahead! The cake is huge and if you want to come to the party it’s not too late.

My personal prediction is that as the bots market matures we will see new, exciting economy branches emerging: bots marketing, bots distributors, bots stores, bots schools and bots teachers, bots’ engineers, bot hiring agencies, bot consultants, hubs of bots, farms of bots (server farms), bot script writers and bot designers, human-bot interaction specialists, therapists specialising in bots related issues and many other we can only guess.

There are, of course, companies filling those niches already, but no one can tell how long will they survive on the market. Meaning that you can enter the competition and survive (or loose). There is a great article describing bots landscape on Venture Beat.

In one of the upcoming articles I want to slowly introduce you to building bots, but today I prepared a list of messaging platforms on which you can build and potentially monetize bots and integrations.

(And by the way: sell pickaxes to make money during a gold rush. In other words, the real money is hidden in infrastructure, platforms and tools!)

12 messaging platforms and apps, plus honourable mentions

No particular order.

Slack

I know I said there is no particular order, but Slack was the first platform that came to my mind. In my personal ranking, Slack is right now the number one between the office communicators.

I remember last year (2016) and the year before Slack was in every fridge! Literally. Dozens of articles appeared on the Internet. I think Slack reached its hype peak around October 2016, but nevertheless, I believe it will continue to grow for years to come.

Slack is a team communication app. It supports group chats, private chats, search through the whole conversation history, voice calls, emojis, bots, custom integrations and, lately, threads and video calls.

I think it’s fair to say that Slack is hugely responsible for pushing the bots revolution forward (at least in the eastern world). Slack officially markets itself as a tool for work. For ‘getting things done’. It has a large base of users, it’s free to some extent and now available as  Slack for the enterprise.

Integration/bots features:

• Buttons
• Rich message formatting
• Attachments
• Notifications
• Private conversations
• Emoji reactions
• Real-time API

Interesting fact: Slack has a fund for companies making bots and integrations.

HipChat

It is, in my opinion, the biggest Slack rival. HipChat is owned by Atlassian, a leader in building tools for developers, well know for an outstanding quality of their work.

Compared to Slack (which seems to embrace the fun aspect), HipChat emphasises the ‘seriousness’ (but with a ‘fun’ twist) of their app.

HipChat covers similar features Slack does but adds screen sharing and guest conversations. It integrates with JIRA and other Atlassian tools seamlessly. And, like Slack, it has a free basic plan available. Which, to me, was a nice surprise knowing how costly their other products are.

An interesting catalogue of experimental bots from Atlassian: bot lab.

Google Assistant

This one is tricky. Google’s bot is kind of self-sufficient. However! Developers can write actions to extend it. The way it works on Google Home is somewhat strange. You invoke an external service with your voice and it’s Assistant’s role to fetch it from a cloud and ignite it. I’m not really convinced about this approach. I think this can be difficult to use unless it works seamlessly. Imagine malicious service being invoked by a mistake or that you forgot which ‘app’ you are currently running…

The nice thing about Assistant is that it’s available on different devices (and in Google Allo) allowing third-party developers to reach more users.

Sign up to their Early Access Program if you want to learn more.

Actions API was announced in 2016.

It’s integrated with apps such as Uber, Netflix, YouTube and Spotify (and more).

Messenger

Facebook’s big boy!

This messenger has been around for a while and it’s targeted at various types of users. It has the biggest user base of all messengers listed here. The staggering number is as high as 1, f, billion users…

Facebook is also the owner of another well-known messaging app: WhatsApp. I have not covered it in this article primarily because it’s not opened for developers to build integrations and bots.

Anyway, I think Facebook is well aware of bots’ potential and the emerging bot economy. Its messenger supports payments, instant games and provides access to the famous GraphAPI.

Messenger Platform was launched in April 2016.

Mattermost

Open source Slack alternative. Backed up by investors such as Y Combinator and Stanford-StartX Fund.

Its big advantage over Slack is you can host it your own infrastructure. This is especially important for companies requiring total control over their data.

Mattermost makes it very clear they are Slack’s and HipChat’s alternatives. Find more information about differences on their website: Slack vs Mattermost, Mattermost vs HipChat.

Telegram

Like Signal it’s marketed as the secure messenger. It uses (optional) end to end encryption.

Bots platform launched in June 2015.

Bot features:

• Gaming (html5)
• Custom keyboards + inline auto-updated keyboards
• Commands
• Message formatting
• Private mode
• Location and phone number input (extra support)

Kik

Kik is famous for its anonymity. There is only a limited information you must provide to start using the app (an email is sufficient).

Bot store was added in April 2016.

Kik focuses on sharing, moments, fun, friends and multimedia.

Features:

• Kik codes: like QR codes but circular 🙂
• Inline bots
• Stickers
• Video chat
• Group chat
• Suggested responses
• Wubbles (rich formatting)

WeChat

The king of chat.

This hugely popular Chinese platform is basically an OS. The number of features it has is just astonishing.

With over a billion accounts (May 2016 statistics), and 700 million active users this app is used far beyond sending simple messages, making video calls or throwing stickers around.

Pay bills, find friends nearby, connect with strangers by shaking your phone, throw a message in a bottle, send digital cash to WeChat wallet in Red Packet, order a meal in restaurant, play games, book a doctor appointment, check air quality and do other things that are way beyond of anything our western apps can do in 2017!

Recently, they have even started something called Mini Programs. A feature that allows you to quickly run an app without installing it by simply scanning a QR code!

Skype

The oldest app on this list. I’m sure all of you know what Skype is, so I will skip the description.

Something worth mentioning, though, is that their Bots Framework combined with Microsoft’s (Skype belongs to Microsoft, you knew that right?) Cognitive Services (a cloud AI utility) and Azure creates a solid, cloud platform to build on. The fact that Microsoft delivers and own all of those services can be a benefit (or a disadvantage if you’re not a Microsoft lover).

Viber

This app doesn’t actually embrace bots, but it allows to add integrations. Their primary focus seems to be on phone (you can even call a regular phone number with this app) and video calls, games and marketing (Public Accounts).

Viber focuses on keeping the conversations engaging and fun. You can send photos, videos, stickers, start a group conversation and use it like a walkie-talkie.

Line

Line doesn’t support bots, but it supports payments, games and (what they call) family apps. It also allows free (but limited) calls to everywhere around the globe. Even to people without WiFi.

As a creator, you can also sell Stickers and Themes through Line store.

Workplace

Another Facebook embodiment. Workplace is undoubtfully a response to Slack and HipChat success on the office communicators market. I didn’t find any store, but I imagine they will launch one at some point. Until then you can build custom integrations.

Honorable mentions

Duolingo bots

This one is a great example of how a company can use bots creatively. With Duolingo bots you can learn a language by having a conversation! Isn’t that a great idea?

Twitter

Not really meant for bots, but Twitter does expose API you can leverage to build a bot. There has been some controversy around Twitter bots, be aware of that.

Microsoft Teams

Not sure about its market share or popularity, but this app is open to bots. It didn’t end up on the primary list but I’m sure you can make money by implementing bots and integrations on this platform. At the end, a lot of companies use Microsoft’s products.

Kakao Talk

I really don’t know much about this one except that it exists and it seems to be popular in South Korea.

BBM

Sorry, Blackberry users, but I was convinced Blackberry doesn’t even exist anymore 🙁 I was so surprised that there is a Blackberry messaging app. It looks pretty decent, to be honest. Main features are: timed messages (kind of like Snapchat but for text), private chats, group chats, BBM discover (It looks to be aimed at marketers. Their website is very vague about it…).

Ongair

Build for Enterprise. As their website says:

Build relationships that last, in the places that matter

Talk to your customers on WhatsApp, WeChat , Facebook Messenger, Telegram and other IM apps today

It looks like a combination of chat and CRM. Ongair features analytics, surveys, CRM integrations and, obviously, messaging.

Discord

A nice proposition for gamers. Exposes an API that lets you build bots and extensions.

Thanks

I hope you liked this articles and that it helped you to get your head around the messaging market. I decided I should make such list when I was looking for a platform to build bots on. Something not overcrowded and a room for growth. All this information is scattered over the Internet, but I couldn’t find a summary anywhere.

It would be great if my list helped you to make your decision about which platform to engage with as a developer. I tried to be as accurate as possible with the numbers, but feel free to correct my errors in comments.

Also, things like the audience are just my opinion, so if you have a different opinion or you know for sure that I’m mistaken, let me know.

Have a great day. Be. Smile. Eat healthily 🙂