MSN Messenger chatbots, smartbots, intelligent chatterbots like SmarterChild and ActiveBuddy

NOTE: I'm about to update this page because it's outdated. Search the news for bot to discover recent news!

"Artificial Intelligence". You've read about it in Wired, you've seen the film by Spielberg and now you want to experience communication with a non-human interface. No problem! Chatbots live on MSN Messenger too and are becoming extremely popular among companies (who realise their positive effect on customer relations) as well as private users (who try to have the most funny conversations with them). Below is a list of intelligent bots who have been spotted on MSN Messenger.

Because the MSN protocol is quite unstable, a lot of the bots will be offline for an indefinite period.

Some bots authorize you right away, others take weeks before they approve you. And some just never add you to their contacts.

Don't flood, boot or lag chat bots. It's kinda lame because you KNOW they can't fight you back.. or wait a minute: they can block you and your IP and put you on the chatbot blacklist. Just don't mess with the bots, okay?

Most bots learn from what you say and respond to them. Or at least their developers analyse the conversations. So pay attention to your language, because you're actually co-developing the bot! Now ain't that great!

Agent Baseball	by Activebuddy, Inc.	ActiveBuddy	Add MSN bot
Major League Baseball, NBA, NHL and Sports News. You need the ActivePlus plug-in for this commercial (demo) bot. It will automatically download and install when you click "Add this bot".

AgentFinance	by Activebuddy, Inc.	ActiveBuddy	Add MSN bot
Specializes in news and financial information, with stock quotes, charts, indices and more. You need the ActivePlus plug-in for this commercial (demo) bot. It will automatically download and install when you click "Add this bot".

Agent Reuters	by Activebuddy, Inc.	ActiveBuddy	Add MSN bot
Specializes in news headlines, utilities, category search, ticker lookup, news search, portfolio, stock quotes, indices, weather, dictionary. You need the ActivePlus plug-in for this commercial (demo) bot. It will automatically download and install when you click "Add this bot".

BBCi Search Buddy	by Activebuddy, Inc.	ActiveBuddy	Add MSN bot
Commercial-free, family friendly, high-quality search via instant-message. You need the ActivePlus plug-in for this bot. It will automatically download and install when you click "Add this bot".

BotGoogle	by Gondaba	unknown	botgoogle@hotmail.com
This bot, just like GoogleMatic below, uses the Google API to search google and return the top five results. Hasn't showed up yet.

Bot of Thought	by Gondaba	unknown	botofthought@hotmail.com
Not tested yet.

DoctorEightBall	by Andrew Bartle	unknown	do not add
The author asked me not to promote this bot yet because it is under development and not ready for mass messaging yet. Watch mess.be for more news.

Galgje	by badguytje@hotmail.com	unknown	galgje@msn.com
Dutch hangman game. Pick a letter and try to complete a word. Type 'overnieuw' for a new word when you're done.

GoogleMatic (officially offline)	by Matt Web	homepage	googlematic@interconnected.org
Googlematic lets you search Google through your Instant Messenging client. There's a screenshot here.

MGamble	by me@mgamble.ca	homepage	me@mgamble.ca
This A.L.I.C.E. Bot is also called "The Dude" and is still under development. He's really good, actually.

NOS-Teletekst	by ZjieB	unknown	bot@clubr.nl
Dutch teletext straight to your MSN Messenger

OugleBot	by Ougle	unknown	ouglebot@hotmail.com
Just a fun bot to have a conversation with, and for the author o practice his perl.

RecipeBuddy	by Activebuddy, Inc.	unknown	Add MSN bot
Keebler, a big snack producer from the U.S., has teamed up with ActiveBuddy Inc. to release it's own RecipeBuddie. Virtual host, Becky, makes suggestions to busy family members for meals based on simple ingredients, any moment and for any occassion.

RevolutionIMServ	by Duncan Lamb	homepage	revolutionimserv@hotmail.com
Powerful bot which samples the SDBA project of Duncan Lamb.

RoboTolga	by Tolga Tohumcu	unknown	robotolga
I asked this one: "What's your name?" and "she" replied: "It tastes salty." Next I asked: "Are you stupid?" and the reaction was: "". And that sums it all up ;) It's just a database of oneliners and standard answers.

ScholarBot	by Matthew Jacobson	unknown	Scholarbot@hotmail.com
I haven't talked to "him" yet, but he's supposed to be good. Spotted on AIM as ScholarBot too!

SmarterChild	by Activebuddy, Inc.	ActiveBuddy	Add MSN bot
Delivers instant access to games, movie showtimes, news, headlines, stock quotes, and more. You need the ActivePlus plug-in for this demo bot. It will automatically download and install when you click "Add this bot".

TV Bot	by Sjeemz	Search.TV	tvbot@hotmail.com
Dutch bot and online TV guide replacement. Add him and yell HELP.

VirtualFriendBot	by Matthew Jacobson	unknown	VirtualFriendBot@hotmail.com
I've added VirtualFriendBot to my contacts a month or two ago and he still didn't show up.

WindiesBot	by Skipper McCoy	unknown	windiesbot@hotmail.com
A bot that returns test cricket statistics of all West Indies players who ever played the game. Say "hello" and the bot returns usage instructions. Haven't tested it yet.

YakSpuiT	by Ron Cylkowski	homepage	YakSpuiT@hotmail.com
Users can actively teach responses to this bot (that explains his rude language), search for MP3s and learn about the weather in a given zipcode.

- SDBA Revolution Instant Messaging Application Server is an extremely useful open-source server written in Perl by Duncan Lamb to provide an architecture to simplify and streamline the process of writing applications that run on an Instant Messaging network. It makes writing chatbots as easy as writing PHP or Per and supports MSN, AIM, and ICQ. Demo's for MSN, AIM, ICQ and YIM, the sourceand a short tutorialare all available at the Revolution Instant Messaging Application Server homepage.

- Intellibot 5.0 by Silverspeed allows you to make your own chatterbots which answer automatically to the trigger words of your choice. Samples for a hangman game and a magic 8 ball script are included. Programmers can even add their own functions using VBScript or DLL files. So, like Intellibot's very own motto says: "Make botz, bot war" and start by downloading it here (MSN Messenger 4.x ONLY!)