Talkabot: The bot conference in Austin

Last month, I also attended the Talkabot Conference in Austin, TX. I gave a 30 minute presentation on Marsbot. I guess you could say I am on a national tour! This time, I shifted focus to how we're adopting everything we've learned about user context (location stops, taste likes, time) to send messages that are really useful.

The conference was great - it was actually my first time in Austin. I had a very warm reception from the team at Howdy and on the last day got to go out on a trek to the salt lick for some BBQ with the founders of Kip, and reps from Slack. At the conference itself, there was a lot of talk about developing standards for chat bots, and building tools and platforms upon which these bots will be built. I loved ordering coffee from a bot barista on kik who in addition to giving you coffee also pitches you his screenplays.

Even though chat bots have existed for a while, there is a sense that we've hit an inflection point and some of the killer apps are coming. There is hope that chat could be the next great platform for innovation.

I've been asked to share my slides. Here they are: talkabot-marsbot-presentation-1

If that wasn't fun enough, Marsbot actually attended the Foursquare Halloween party last night!