MSN created two chat bots which you can add to your MSN Messenger list.

encarta@conversagent.com will answer your questions using the Encarta encyclopedia.

Welcome, Andrei Pociu! My name is Encarta Instant Answers. I am a smart computer who can bring you the Encarta info you want right in your IM window!
Here are some questions you can ask me:
* I want to see the map of Italy.
* I want to see the biography of Nelson Mandela.
* How many calories are there in an orange?

Type your question and I’ll look it up for you!

A few successful questions / messages I tried:

• How much is 5 * 8
• Where are you from
• How old are you
• Who created you
• Who owns you
• I know that
• Are you married
• Are you drunk
• ASL

Aside from these obvious rude questions, this bot can give you some very useful answers, such as What’s the capital of Burkina Faso.

Moving on, bbcbackstage@hotmail.com is another bot for MSN Messenger, which will show you the latest TV listings on BBC. Say “hello” to it first.

Another older bot is imapps@msn.com which is an example of creating a bot using the Messenger API.

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Instant Messengers article posted on Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 2:00 am . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.