Bot Scouts
Let Robots Do Your Exploring Online
Tiny invisible robots have invaded the World Wide Web. It's true. Each day, while you browse along from Amazon.com to eBay to CNN Interactive, an entire population of pseudo-beings is traversing the same cyberspace ahead of you, dutifully collecting the same information for someone else. These diligent, non-humanoid entities are known as bots, or software robots -- programs designed to save you time, entertain you, and generally help you stay within travel range of the ever-expanding boundaries of cyberspace.
Today's bots come in all shapes and sizes, and they perform all manner of tasks. They operate under their own steam; some even make their own decisions. And if you spend a little time getting to know them, they can be great friends.
You can employ a searcher bot, for example, to scour the Web for information about a certain topic. The bot will automatically catalogue the information based on your priorities and deliver the material directly to your hard drive. A shopper bot lives to go out bargain hunting for you. A stock bot can retrieve investment information of each new IPO that hits the market, and a good E-mail bot will automatically scan your incoming spam.
Whatever your personal interests might be, there's probably a hot out there waiting to pound the pavement of the superhighway on your behalf. In this article, we'll take a look at this proliferating species of Web workers and fill you in on how to find the ones that can work for you.
I, Robot. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines the word "robot" as "a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks." Software robots are designed to live up to this definition in ways their mechanized cousins never could. MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum invented one of the first working software robots in 1966; named Eliza, this infamous program mimicked a "psychotherapist" by answering user questions with questions of its own. Eliza worked by analyzing the lant;uage of the questions asked, then matching identifiable linguistic patterns with pre-programmed responses
Eliza was developed primarily as a tool for studying human language, but programmers have been examining new applications for bet technology ever since. It's no surprise, then, that the Internet has become a fertile proving ground for new prototypes.
By nature, bets are well-suited for mining the increasingly unmanageable heaps of data on the web. And while many Webmasters view these helpful critters as bandwidth-hogging pests, such programs have exploded in popularity, and their numbers continue to rise. So it seems official: the bots are here to stay.
Say Hello To The New Bots.
Bot technology represents one niche in computer science's ongoing struggle to create true artificial intelligence (AI, the theoretical capability of a computer program to think and behave like a human being). Many computer scientists use the term agent to describe bots that: use high levels of AI. Many computer scientists also agree, however, that continuing development in the world of AI and bot-building often blurs the meaningful line that separates these two terms. For the purposes; of this article he'll use the terms bot and agent interchangeably. In theory, a fully intelligent bot would be able to carry out your requests, learn on its own, handle increasingly complex tasks through independent reasoning, and even anticipate your needs based on what it "knows".
Currently, this level of AI is still the stuff of which science fiction is made, at least as far as mainstream Internet users are concerned. But thanks to the flurry of development that has occurred over the past several years, each new generation of bots is smarter than the last.
Many bots use their own heuristic language models and internal logic to sift data, refine their search methods as they go, and learn from past experiences based on preferences you define.
The following are a few general categories of bots you can use to take some of the paddle-work out of surfing the Web. Check out the Web address provided at the end of each category for a comprehensive list of specific bots currently available. The lists we cite here of bots you can use are compiled and maintained by Internet.com's BotSpot site. Some of the bots contained in these lists are Web-based utilities, while others are available for download from the developer.
The Searchers. searcher bots are the most general type of bot available. Essentially, all Internet-related bots feature some type of search capability. Beyond their respective technological muscle, the main difference between bots is their particular area of specialty.
If you already use the Web, you are probably familiar with popular search engines such as Yahoo!, AltaVista, or Excite. These and other Web-based search utilities use a type of bot called a spider to compile huge databases of information. A spider bot crawls the Web in search of documents, bringing what it finds to the search engine's database. Meta search engines, such as MetaCrawler send multiple spiders to other search engines to retrieve and catalogue information that other spiders have already found.
If you already know where you want to look for certain types of information, you can eliminate the middleman by employing your own personal spider bet. Your spider bot can be dispatched directly from your desktop, and it will bring information directly to your hard drive. All you do is feed the spider a list of Web addresses and keywords tell the bot how deeply to dig through each server it visits, and specify what type of information you want it to retrieve -- text, images, sound files, video clips, and the like. Then go have a sandwich and maybe a nap. When you return, your hard drive will likely be brimming with goodies for dessert.
For a list of available search; bots, refer to the BotSpot list (as mentioned above). scroll down to Bots by Category and click the link for Search Bots.
Shopping Mania.
If you are among the many people who have been bitten by the Internet bargain bug, the phrase "shop 'til you drop" has probably taken on a whole new meaning in your life. With a specialized shopping bot, however, you can increase your stamina by letting your computer do your price hunting for you. For example, the Acses bot automatically searches more than 20 online bookstores for the best prices, availability, shipping time, and shipping costs of any book, video, or CD you wish to buy. The Bottom Dollar bot searches online retailers in 20 different product categories and retrieves the best prices for your desired merchandise. The bots at Bidder's Edge can scour popular online auction services for that mint-condition Stickley rocking chair you've been looking for.
It has been theorized that the future of online shopping will be populated by intelligent buyer and seller bots, which will be able to meet and negotiate sale prices in special hot markets on behalf of their human "clients." If this speculative future becomes a reality, you may be able to simply place an order request with your favorite buyer bot and wait for your merchandise to appear on your doorstep (and the bill to appear on your credit card statement). For now, however, check out a host of today's shopper bots through the BotSpot list. Scroll down to Bots by Category and click Shopping Bots.
Give It To Me Straight.
With the help of the specialized bots in this category, the old saying "yesterday's news is today's fish-wrap" need never apply to your knowledge of current affairs. Enter your news interests into the CNN Custom News bot , and you'll automatically receive related articles from CNN and over 100 additional news sources. If you sign up to the HealthScout bot, you'll receive personalized daily health headlines. The AdHound hot does the same thing with classified ads from over 100 newspapers. Find these and other news boots at the BotSpot. Again, scroll to Bots by Category and select News Bots.
Spam-Free E-mail.
While some bots are designed to deliver information to you. via E-mail, other bots protect you from the endless clutter of junk E-mail sent from the myriad outbound agencies Currently plying their trade on the Internet.
For example, the Snoop bot sifts through all your incoming mail and performs actions based on criteria you specify. An auto-respond feature handles junk, an auto-forward feature passes along the good stuff to you, and automated wizards help you configure your E-mail processing rules. The BotSpot maintains a list of additional E-mail Bots.
Capitol Hill.
A famous scholar once said: "The personal is political." We're still not exactly sure what that means, but if you have a personal interest in politics, there are several government-related bots designed to fit (or find) your bill.
The INQUERY bot lets you perform full-text searches for information about all bills currently on the floor of the House and Senate. Another version of INQUERY lets you conduct keyword searches through White House press releases, photographs, web pages, Executive Orders, and all Websites maintained by the U.S. Government. The GILS bot (Government Information Locator Service,) lets you conduct intelligent searches through many types of Federal information resources. And the bot known as Mr. Smith EMails Washington helps you send E-mails to any member of the 106th U.S. Congress. BotSpot has lists of more Government Bots that will search for information from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Laboratory Statistics, for instance.
Let Us Entertain You.
It should probably come as no surprise that some of the most innovative developments in intelligent bots has occurred in the category of personal entertainment. Do you love books? Movies? Role-playing games? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, the bots in this category were designed for you.
Open Sesame's eGenie bot learns your personal entertainment tastes by monitoring your Web activities. Based on the personal profile it compiles, the program recommends Websites that provide the stuff you like best. The Movie Critic bot lets you rate movies you've seen, then recommends movies you haven't seen based on your personal ratings system. The Alexandria Digital Literature bot provides a similar ratings and recommendation service for books and also lets you download some hard-to-find short stories, novellas, and full-length novels (for a fee). If the reality of a litter box is distasteful to you, a handful of "fun bots" even let you raise cyber-pets. Peruse the list of Fun Bots at BotSpot for more ideas.
For The Love Of Money.
Unfortunately, most of us still have to work in order to afford to play. If you need to research a potential employer, or if you're in the process of creating that multimillion-dollar stock portfolio, you can use a bot to help you pan for gold nuggets in the data stream. The InfoBeat bot is a free service that automatically sends you investment alerts, closing market prices, and market indicators relevant to your per sonal portfolio. The CompanySleuth bot keeps you abreast of business information about publicly and privately traded companies you select. The NetProphet bot helps you optimize your investment practices by tracking stock quotes, analyzing your allotments, and offering ratings for stocks trades on the major U.S. stock exchanges. You can explore these and other Financial Bots through the BotSpot list.
Chatter Bots.
Most bots behave like robots. But some try to behave like humans. Chat bots, such as the original Eliza program, focus on natural language analysis to conduct semi-human conversations with users. Some chat bots are especially clever~about disguising their robotic natures, intentionally using eerily human techniques like bad grammar and pour typing skills.
Still, current chat bots are primarily useful as entertaining, high-tech Mad Lib games. For example, if you strike up a conversation with Erin, the chat hot bartender at Extempo's Virtual Bar, you're likely to get some snappy comebacks and an entertaining dose of Rock 'n Roll trivia.
The potential uses of chatter bots seem endless. Automated help desks run by intelligent chat bots, for example, are soon to be commonplace, and they'll almost certainly be a preferable alternative to holding for hour on a tech support line.
On the other hand, anybody who has ever been interrupted at home by a tele-marketer's auto-dialer can probably imagine being chatted up on the Wet by a human-sounding, advertising weasel bot.
So with the good comes the bad. While we all wait for the chat bot's yin and yang to find each other, you can find the current state of the art through BotSpot's Chatter Bots list.
Update Daily.
It's great that bot software scans the entire Internet for the information you're looking for, but the information on the Internet changes on a daily basis. Enter the bots in our final category, designed to update you whenever new and interesting material appears on your favovourite Web sites.
The Amazon.com Book Matcher bot alerts you every time a new book of the type you generally enjoy is released by a publisher. The Alert! bot updates you with new Internet information via E-mail based on your own "personal awareness program." And the sardonically named Do-I-Care bot lets you train it to update you with information based on your own changing interests. You can find these and many other specialty Update bots at BotSpot.
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.
When it comes to discriminating taste, and the subtle nuances of interpersonal communication, it still true that nothing beats the human brain.
But when it comes to quickly sorting through endless reams of Internet info and automating other time-consuming computer tasks, the bots are hard to beat. The categories and programs discussed in this article are only the tip of the iceberg, of course, and we encourage you to get out there and interview a few bots of your own before offering one a permanent position in your Web browser.
Be sure to treat them nicely. You never know when one might be interviewing you.