SmarterChild was a

chatbot A chatbot or chatterbot is a Software agent, software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or Speech synthesis, text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly si ...

available on

AOL Instant Messenger AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. AIM w ...

and

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

(previously

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

) networks.

History

SmarterChild was an intelligent agent or "bot" developed by

ActiveBuddy Colloquis, previously known as ActiveBuddy and Conversagent, was a company that created conversation-based interactive agents originally distributed via instant messaging platforms. The company had offices in New York, NY and Sunnyvale, CA. Found ...

, Inc., with offices in New York and Sunnyvale. It was widely distributed across global instant messaging networks. SmarterChild became very popular, attracting over 30 million Instant Messenger "buddies" on AIM (AOL) and MSN and Yahoo Messenger over the course of its lifetime. Founded in 2000, ActiveBuddy was the brainchild of

Robert Hoffer American businessman Robert Hoffer has worked for the past 25 years primarily in technology and software. He initially developed and launched one of the first online yellow pages. Hoffer is also credited with having developed instant messaging a ...

and Timothy Kay, who later brought seasoned advertising executive Peter Levitan on board as CEO. The concept for conversational instant messaging bots came from the founder's vision to add natural language comprehension functionality to the increasingly popular AIM instant messaging application. The original implementation took shape as a demo that Kay programmed in PERL in his Los Altos garage to connect a single buddy name, "ActiveBuddy", to look up stock symbols, and later allow AIM users to play

Colossal Cave Adventure ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the pl ...

, a famous word-based adventure game, and MIT's Boris Katz Start Question Answering System but quickly grew to include a wide range of database applications the company called 'knowledge domains' including instant access to news, weather, stock information, movie times, yellow pages listings, and detailed sports data, as well as a variety of tools (personal assistant, calculators, translator, etc.). The bundled domains were launched publicly as SmarterChild (on AIM initially) in June 2001. SmarterChild provided information wrapped in fun and quirky conversation that the company later struggled to market as automated customer service agents to large corporations. SmarterChild's popularity spawned targeted marketing-oriented bots for

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

Austin Powers ''Austin Powers'' is a series of American spy action comedy films: '' Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery'' (1997), '' Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me'' (1999) and ''Austin Powers in Goldmember'' (2002). The films were produced an ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Keebler The Keebler Company is an American cookie and former cracker manufacturer. Founded in 1853, it has produced numerous baked snacks, advertised with the Keebler Elves. Keebler had marketed its brands such as Cheez-It (which have the Sunshine Biscu ...

The Sporting News The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...

and others. ActiveBuddy co-founders, Kay and Hoffer, as co-inventors, were issued 2 controversial U.S. patents in 2002. ActiveBuddy changed its name to Colloquis and targeted development of enterprise focused customer service agents. Microsoft acquired Colloquis in 2007 and proceeded to de-commission SmarterChild and kill off the Automated Service Agent business as well. In many ways, SmarterChild was a precursor to Apple's

Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

and Samsung's S Voice. As Shawn Carolan of Menlo Ventures, a Siri investor, said, "…When I first encountered Siri, SmarterChild already had 10 million users and was getting a billion messages a day… The market was speaking." Robert Hoffer, ActiveBuddy co-founder, licensed the technology from Microsoft after Microsoft shelved the Colloquis technology.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smarterchild Instant messaging Microsoft acquisitions