Facebook social network introduced a platform for creating chat bots in the Messenger application

In the Facebook Messenger application, a platform for the development of chat bots for the needs of various companies appeared, RBC reports. The innovation was announced by the founder of the social network Mark Zuckerberg during a speech at a conference for F8 developers.

According to Zuckerberg, an open API (interface for application development) was introduced on Facebook Messenger, with which third -party developers can independently create bots for communication with the application audience.

It is assumed that business bots will simplify the procedure for ordering goods and services for users of the application, and for companies they will open a new large sales platform. At the same time, Zuckerberg recalled that according to the results of last year, the Facebook Messenger became the most downloaded mobile application in the United States, and the other day the number of active users of the messenger exceeded 900 million people.

During the performance, Tsuckerberg also gave examples of chat bots for business. So, the CNN boot offers readers to receive materials from materials or brief descriptions of articles, and the boot of the online store "1-800-Flowers" allows you to order a bouquet directly in the chat window.

Tsuckerberg noted that the Bot-Plaform on the Facebook Messenger is only one of the elements of the expansion of the Facebook ecosystem in the next five years. The social networks also include the development of the Facebook Live online broadcasts service, artificial intelligence technologies, virtual and supplemented reality and an increase in the coverage of the Internet audience.

It should be noted that the presented bottle-plate is not devoid of shortcomings. According to The Verge , testing of some bots showed that they respond to user requests too slowly. For example, the bot that sends the weather forecast “usually responds within an hour”, and the WSJ edition has a response to the request only after four minutes.

The creation of the bottlenecks are actively engaged in developers of other instant messengers. For example, the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov the day before presented an updated bot-platform. Interest in this area is also shown by Yandex. At the end of March, the search engine bought 21% of Chatfuel engaged in the creation of bots.