Facebook Messenger has received another bot, Digg bot. Digg (Internet homepage that features the best articles, videos and trending internet content) has launched the bot that automatically suggests interesting articles and videos for the users. However, you can also use the search option within the bot to find the articles for yourself.
The logic behind the idea is to provide you with a premium content discovery. Users can access, share and discuss the best of internet content from within their messaging applications. With many users already spending a lot of time in Facebook Messenger, Digg wants to make it even more seamless for you to search and share internet content without having to toggle between multiple apps i.e. search an article or video in your browser then open messaging app to share it with friends, colleagues or relatives. With Digg bot for Messenger, all you need to do is to log into your messaging app and voila- search and share!
Besides, Digg has also launched Digg Editions. The new product is just but an expanded version of Daily Digg email which is published every weekday. However, Digg Editions will be published twice each weekday and once during the weekend. Each edition is a stream of articles and videos which include top news and some additional content categories.
Digg bot automatic operation mode
Articles are bunched with respect to trending topics while content is carefully chosen with regards to reading patterns for different periods and weekdays. Digg Editions will be universal at launch, but will be customizable based on user’s tastes, behavior, and networks.
The concept sounds interesting, but it’s unfortunate that Digg bot won’t let you discover what content you want to view, instead of the bot will nag you with chosen editions that you may not even to be interested in. It’s even much annoying that even after declining a suggestion you will be prompted with another suggestion. The Digg bot is also capable of sending you trending videos and articles that may be frustrating, but the company has promised to make this less often. Basically, this how Digg bot works automatically. However, the other way the bots works is through search. Here is how it goes.
Digg bot functionality via search
Users can search internet content based on the following classes of search:
- Category based search – This class of search enable you to search content based on verticals by looking for tags such as entertainment, technology, health and sports.
- Domain-based search – Using URLs you can find top articles and videos by several best publishers.
- Keyword based search – The concept is simple: use simple keywords to find anything on the internet.
- Trending search – This class allow you find trending articles and videos across the Digg network by just typing “trending”.
Is Digg bot really a bot?
Digg says no, but why? After seeing what the Digg bot is, let’s cross-examine this product. Well, it’s true you can seamlessly search articles using the bot, but what is the difference with Google search? Google query can do exactly the same thing.
As chatbots continue to come there has been a surge of sentiments that can be categorized into three groups. First, Artificial Intelligence realm is soon becoming the future of computing, chatbots will surely define social interactions in 10 or so years to come. Without any doubts, publishers should embrace this new shift. Secondly, some chatbots complicate operations instead of simplifying them. Most bots launched nowadays are a big disappointment. Finally, the third category comprises of chatbots that have a lot of potential but still need improvements. An example; chat apps being groomed to succeed browsers still need much to be done on conversational intelligence.
Digg agrees that its bot fall in the third category but brushes off the idea that it’s actually a bot. In fact, Digg bot requires much effort than simply browsing on digg.com. Digg argues that finding articles and videos does not really need a conversation with a machine, so the bot does not need AI-based conversation to achieve its objective. But, it could make more sense if Digg bot for Messenger could filter articles or videos by length to save on time instead of duplicating what search engines do better.