Ten months ago, I made a digital clone of myself. Now, she’s back.

I created a simple scripted ‘mebot’ last year dubbed SandiMacBot, that allowed you to have a conversation with a bot version of me. She explored some interesting ideas:

• How do we scale human communication?
• Can people build on their existing relationship with you (or create a new relationship) by interacting with your ‘digital double’?
• How have existing social platforms failed to capture intimate, visceral content, leading to a shift to messengers?
• Why are all products clambering to further increase synchronicity?

Developing solutions to these questions is the purpose behind ddouble (short for ‘digital double’), a new project I’ve been spending time on. We’ve spent the past few months narrowing in on these ideas, and are excited to release a much improved version (but still very much a prototype).

My digital double is on Facebook’s Messenger, ready to chat with my friends, acquaintances, and strangers about a variety of topics, share what I’m up to, and otherwise allow people to interact me — without my actual involvement.

This next version of my digital double can chat with anyone and everyone about:

• What I’ve been up to — my double might let you know about coffee shops I’ve visited, what my Friday night was like, or share a recent photo, as well as where I am or what I was up to most recently.
• My favorite books on startups, graphic novels I’ve read, and my favorite books of the past year, along with articles I recommend people read on everything from product management to diversity in tech.
• Music I’m listening to lately, products I’ve bought, and my favorite apps across various categories.
• Many of the details of my backstory — where I’m from, what I studied in school, where I’ve lived. Random personal factoids too (SPOILER: I’m allergic to mussels!).
• …and of course, share random easter eggs :D

Chat to my double on Messenger here!

One quick note: The underlying infrastructure is a bit jankier (i.e. sorry in advance for delays and weird bugs — startups are all about tradeoffs!), but the overall experience is much more real, with much richer content :)