POP and Deemaze: the first year

Hello again! This time we’re here to tell you about POP, a platform we’ve been developing with the team from the Netherlands.

POP is a simple Messenger bot platform that makes it easy for anyone with a fanbase to connect directly with their audience. Currently, POP powers millions of messages every day for the world’s leading indie, dance and even major labels.

How it all started

Nowadays, the I AM POP and Deemaze teams work together on POP on a daily basis, sharing development and project management tasks. But we’ve come a long way!

This collaboration started on an earlier project called AutoPOP, which gave its users updates via email about releases and concerts nearby of artists they chose to follow. This service was subscribed and managed through the AutoPOP’s website.

But using email for this type of communication was not ideal, and that’s how we began working with Facebook Messenger bots. AutoPOP transformed into DISCO, so the updates go straight into your Messenger inbox!

However, another challenge was rising! How could we involve artists themselves? We were sure they had a whole variety of news to share directly with their followers. The next step was giving them a tool to do that — quickly share content with a large number of people, in a way as simple and personal as texting someone.

POP’s evolution

The first stage of POP had a specific goal: letting artists message fans. The first iteration was a tool through which the artist was able to message all his audience at once. To join an artist’s audience list, the user simply has to follow them on Facebook and press Get Started on the Messenger conversation with the page.

But it didn’t stay that way for long. POP has grown — and it’s still growing — into a much more complete set of features. Users can easily configure menus, set custom replies to keywords, compose galleries, invite more users to manage the bot, see information and statistics about their audience and messages sent, and so on!

You can explore these features using the free trial on iampop.in.

State of the art(ists)

In the last couple of months, we’ve had several artists, bands and record labels joining the POP’s family. Here are some of the artists you can already talk to:

• Armin van Buuren
• Run the Jewels
• Enter Shikari
• Tash Sultana
• Top Notch
• Armada music
• Lina
• Jess and the Bandits
• Kara Marni

We’re proud to be working with such talented people and excited to say there are more coming aboard!

Feel free to share your thoughts on POP, we’d love to hear your opinion and suggestions. In the meantime, we’ll keep you posted on new artists joining us and the technical challenges of creating POP. Stick around!

You can follow POP’s journey on its own social media. From Medium to Twitter and, of course, on Facebook with their own Messenger bot.

Thank you, I AM POP team, for involving us in this awesome project!