Virtual little people: IM-bot for the company Keebler (part 2)
( beginning of article )
Ingredients
Murray has gone into the project. “I'm the mad scientist who stands behind RecipeBuddie,” she says. “This is not the same as a database wrapped in an IM package. It's all about natural language. This is the territory of the writer, and writing scripts is much more fun than you can imagine. You must anticipate all the possible ways people can ask you a question. For example, the expression "I hate onions." Someone can write "I do not like onions," or "I do not like onions," or "Just no onions."
')
Then, you must master the different options of communication with the user. If someone says he doesn't like onions, you can answer, “I understand. So no bow. Why don't you try one of these recipes? ”
This answer consists of three separate parts: confirmation, repetition of the client’s need and recommendation. And each of the parts can be expressed in different ways. For example, an agent should recognize that “Hello” is the same as “Good day”, and “Hello”, and “Hayushki” and “Preved”.
Writing an agent using BuddyScript is like writing a play for two characters, an interactive agent and a user. The developer determines which words and phrases the agent can understand and how he should respond.
“We make it so that RecipeBuddie can react to such things as“ I am sad, ”she asked in response:“ How would you react to food that creates comfort? ” Or "I need to make dinner for the children," and then she offers something suitable for the children. The recipe database is not capable of this, because the apple pie itself does not mean that children can like it. Above the recipe database we put a layer, which is a layer of humanity. ” This layer works with recipes based on associations with words that are not among the ingredients - for example, “kosher” or “picnic”.
To program RecipeBuddie, Emedia took 8 weeks of work on a reinforced schedule. It was created about two thousand models of dialogue. “The ideal combination for projects of this kind is a strong programmer and a strong writer. All that you have at the exit of this word. And your task is to make it not just words, but a voice full of power, ”says Murray. Her team had to create a special voice for RecipeBuddie. They started with the nebulous image of Emeril Lagasse, then they switched to the prissier type Betty Crocker, and only after that they stopped at Becki, which, it seemed to them, most closely matches the Keebler audience — a woman between 25 and 54. “She is a provincial and she has a feeling humor, ”says Murray.
However, women of this age group are not the only RecipeBuddie users. Apparently, some other groups cannot keep themselves from asking a bot woman a series of questions, from outrageously personal to completely insulting. “I purposefully tried to ask all possible questions that I could think up,” says Murray, who also asked me to test the bot and my friends. This prepared Becky for such unavoidable questions as “Would you agree to meet with me?”, “How old are you?” And other more personal things, in response to which she had to politely allow the user and transfer the conversation to a culinary topic.
To taste
After the technical difficulties were overcome, Murray faced political obstacles, starting with AOL, whose IM service is most widely used on the Internet. Before an external bot is launched on its network, AOL must give permission since “they must press the appropriate button to allow an unlimited stream of messages to go to one nickname,” said Murray. The catch is that AOL does not earn anything with the ActiveBuddy bots. That is why AOL requires that when bots are launched, such as RecipeBuddie, they buy a media platform from her. Neither MSN nor Yahoo require such purchases.
“AOL tried to develop its own software to create bots by itself,” says Murray. “It’s clear that they just want to get all the money alone - when these bots were launched, RecipeBuddie had to pay.” Anyway, the three main IM services allow RecipeBuddie to work in their networks.
“To measure the success of RecipeBuddie, we use different methods,” said Jeff Johansen, vice president of marketing at Keebler. “They include the number of users who have added RecipeBuddie as friends, the number of messages that RecipeBuddie exchanges, the number of recipes viewed and the number of recipes printed. The number of users who have added RecipeBuddie as a friend reflects the intention to use RecipeBuddie more than once. In addition, we use the factor of printed recipes to determine intentions to make future purchases and expected offline sales. We were shocked when it turned out that our plans for the quarter were exceeded, just a few weeks after the launch of RecipeBuddie. ”
RecipeBuddie was launched in September 2002. Keebler says that they have not yet received some stunning breakthrough, but during the test that made Keebler acquire the RecipeBuddie idea, out of 120,000 clicks, 6.5 percent clicked on the link to the online registration form for the web competition -site cheez-it.
The previous ActiveBuddy agents also had high hopes. When the Austin Powers agent was launched on June 26, 2002, it brought nearly 50 million messages for more than 2 million visits, in just one month. On average, consumers talked with the Austin Powers bot for 8 minutes each, and this is very seductive news for marketers. The number of clicks to the film site was 74 percent, the number of clicks on Austin Powers Doritos links was above 7 percent and more than 4 thousand users registered on the Doritos site for the first 4 days of the campaign.
“Judging by the number of clicks on the links, one can say that the program has achieved success,” said Murray, and added that she had learned three important things in the process of creating RecipeBuddie. “First of all, we just touch the surface of what we still have to do. Users have the desire to really communicate deeply with bots. Secondly, this should be done by a very cohesive team. This is a bit like writing a novel. Third, there are many ways to allow people to contribute their own content. Right now we are working on a project that will compactly link frequently asked questions and answers to them. ”
As for RecipeBuddie, her Bombay sandwich turned out to be exactly what I was looking for and it was time to end our chat. “Thank you for everything,” I told her.
“You're welcome,” she replied. "Can I find another recipe for you today?" But I didn’t have time to answer how she blurted out: “Bring the zest into your life with the help of the stunning taste of Roasted Crackers!”
Translation from English to:
blog.worldwebstudio.com
Ingredients
Murray has gone into the project. “I'm the mad scientist who stands behind RecipeBuddie,” she says. “This is not the same as a database wrapped in an IM package. It's all about natural language. This is the territory of the writer, and writing scripts is much more fun than you can imagine. You must anticipate all the possible ways people can ask you a question. For example, the expression "I hate onions." Someone can write "I do not like onions," or "I do not like onions," or "Just no onions."
')
Then, you must master the different options of communication with the user. If someone says he doesn't like onions, you can answer, “I understand. So no bow. Why don't you try one of these recipes? ”
This answer consists of three separate parts: confirmation, repetition of the client’s need and recommendation. And each of the parts can be expressed in different ways. For example, an agent should recognize that “Hello” is the same as “Good day”, and “Hello”, and “Hayushki” and “Preved”.
Writing an agent using BuddyScript is like writing a play for two characters, an interactive agent and a user. The developer determines which words and phrases the agent can understand and how he should respond.
“We make it so that RecipeBuddie can react to such things as“ I am sad, ”she asked in response:“ How would you react to food that creates comfort? ” Or "I need to make dinner for the children," and then she offers something suitable for the children. The recipe database is not capable of this, because the apple pie itself does not mean that children can like it. Above the recipe database we put a layer, which is a layer of humanity. ” This layer works with recipes based on associations with words that are not among the ingredients - for example, “kosher” or “picnic”.
To program RecipeBuddie, Emedia took 8 weeks of work on a reinforced schedule. It was created about two thousand models of dialogue. “The ideal combination for projects of this kind is a strong programmer and a strong writer. All that you have at the exit of this word. And your task is to make it not just words, but a voice full of power, ”says Murray. Her team had to create a special voice for RecipeBuddie. They started with the nebulous image of Emeril Lagasse, then they switched to the prissier type Betty Crocker, and only after that they stopped at Becki, which, it seemed to them, most closely matches the Keebler audience — a woman between 25 and 54. “She is a provincial and she has a feeling humor, ”says Murray.
However, women of this age group are not the only RecipeBuddie users. Apparently, some other groups cannot keep themselves from asking a bot woman a series of questions, from outrageously personal to completely insulting. “I purposefully tried to ask all possible questions that I could think up,” says Murray, who also asked me to test the bot and my friends. This prepared Becky for such unavoidable questions as “Would you agree to meet with me?”, “How old are you?” And other more personal things, in response to which she had to politely allow the user and transfer the conversation to a culinary topic.
To taste
After the technical difficulties were overcome, Murray faced political obstacles, starting with AOL, whose IM service is most widely used on the Internet. Before an external bot is launched on its network, AOL must give permission since “they must press the appropriate button to allow an unlimited stream of messages to go to one nickname,” said Murray. The catch is that AOL does not earn anything with the ActiveBuddy bots. That is why AOL requires that when bots are launched, such as RecipeBuddie, they buy a media platform from her. Neither MSN nor Yahoo require such purchases.
“AOL tried to develop its own software to create bots by itself,” says Murray. “It’s clear that they just want to get all the money alone - when these bots were launched, RecipeBuddie had to pay.” Anyway, the three main IM services allow RecipeBuddie to work in their networks.
“To measure the success of RecipeBuddie, we use different methods,” said Jeff Johansen, vice president of marketing at Keebler. “They include the number of users who have added RecipeBuddie as friends, the number of messages that RecipeBuddie exchanges, the number of recipes viewed and the number of recipes printed. The number of users who have added RecipeBuddie as a friend reflects the intention to use RecipeBuddie more than once. In addition, we use the factor of printed recipes to determine intentions to make future purchases and expected offline sales. We were shocked when it turned out that our plans for the quarter were exceeded, just a few weeks after the launch of RecipeBuddie. ”
RecipeBuddie was launched in September 2002. Keebler says that they have not yet received some stunning breakthrough, but during the test that made Keebler acquire the RecipeBuddie idea, out of 120,000 clicks, 6.5 percent clicked on the link to the online registration form for the web competition -site cheez-it.
The previous ActiveBuddy agents also had high hopes. When the Austin Powers agent was launched on June 26, 2002, it brought nearly 50 million messages for more than 2 million visits, in just one month. On average, consumers talked with the Austin Powers bot for 8 minutes each, and this is very seductive news for marketers. The number of clicks to the film site was 74 percent, the number of clicks on Austin Powers Doritos links was above 7 percent and more than 4 thousand users registered on the Doritos site for the first 4 days of the campaign.
“Judging by the number of clicks on the links, one can say that the program has achieved success,” said Murray, and added that she had learned three important things in the process of creating RecipeBuddie. “First of all, we just touch the surface of what we still have to do. Users have the desire to really communicate deeply with bots. Secondly, this should be done by a very cohesive team. This is a bit like writing a novel. Third, there are many ways to allow people to contribute their own content. Right now we are working on a project that will compactly link frequently asked questions and answers to them. ”
As for RecipeBuddie, her Bombay sandwich turned out to be exactly what I was looking for and it was time to end our chat. “Thank you for everything,” I told her.
“You're welcome,” she replied. "Can I find another recipe for you today?" But I didn’t have time to answer how she blurted out: “Bring the zest into your life with the help of the stunning taste of Roasted Crackers!”
Translation from English to:
blog.worldwebstudio.com
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/30927/
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