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My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

azumbrunnen.me

11–20 of 169 posts

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#11
Chatbots are dead, long live chatbots! I firmly believe we are going through the “through of disillusionment” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle). We need to figure out ways to really bring value to people and not just raise money for the next AI based Chatbot system!

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#14
post #11

Chatbots are dead, long live chatbots! I firmly believe we are going through the “through of disillusionment” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle ). We need to figure out ways to really bring value to people and not just raise money for the next AI based Chatbot system!

I'm not a user myself, but assistants (Alexa, Google's, Cortana, etc) are chatbots and seem to be quite in swing. Not as hyped as last year, but still.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#17
post #8

I absolutely despise those pop-up "Can I help you" boxes on product websites (usually Intercom). It completely disrupts my flow as a reader in trying to understand the product. That attention disruption got so bad I blocked Intercom and their ilk via injected CSS rules. I really want to take it a step further and write a plug in to interface a chat bot with the human on the other end and waste their time so sites beg…

I thought like you in the past. I only installed the Crisp chatbox (with no popup) on my SaaS and was very surprised with the results: I got more contact from users through it than through Email or Telegram. I got a lot of feedback and was able to help many potential customers.

As developers who never need help, we tend to forget that some people might do, and that a Chatbox that annoys us can help them.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#19
post #5
post #3

I'd just like to point out how absolutely terrible that simulated mouse cursor on that site is. Feels very sluggish and weird. Please don't do this.

It's also very alienating. Why is this even possible?

You can get current cursor position, and you can render things at arbitrary positions on the screen. Making this not possible would probably unnecessarily restrict your ability to build even actually useful things.

Although hiding the real mouse cursor probably shouldn't be allowed without a permission dialog imo.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#20
post #4

I'm not sure why it took so long for people to recognize this. An overwhelming majority of chatbots I've used are utter rubbish and are better served through a regular interface (search, directory listing, etc). Everyone dreads call menus / phone trees - chatbots are largely the same except there are easier & better UX alternatives in an online medium.

Because customers want to talk to a person, and executives don't want to pay for that person. Enter a slick salesman with a bogus "AI-based machine-learning customer service automation" spiel, and bob's your uncle
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