“Chatbots — From Chat To Full-Serve Experience” — https://www.ai-expo.net/northamerica/track/bot-virtual-assistant-development/ (AI Expo, Santa Clara Convention Centre, November 29–30, 2017)

“Progressive Web Apps or Chatbots?” — https://tmt.knect365.com/ux-next/speakers/alex-bunardzic-2 (UX Next, October 30–31, 2017, Crowne Plaza, Palo Alto, CA)

“Toward Intelligent Chatbots: Google or Github Model?” — http://www.theai-show.com/speakers#/alex-bunardzic (The AI Show, 4–5 October, 2017, Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA)

“Self-Serve Is Dead; Long Live Digital Experts!” — http://bit.ly/2y0moP7 (Delivered at TechXLR8 in London, England on June 14, 2017)

“How To Build Bots For Business” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_jVSc7hvWU (Delivered at Vancouver Ruby Meetup on May 25, 2016)

“How to avoid a Pyramid of Doom when designing Bot Workflows” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzNT1NPlVJU&t=71s (Presented at Chatbots Conference in Vienna, Austria on October 14, 2016)

“Are You Ready For The Bot Disruption?” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgHJAW4UECU (Streamed live on August 3, 2016)

“Breaking The Fourth Wall In Software” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlII7z8f_1g (Presented at Vancouver Red Academy on February 26, 2016)

“Bringing The ‘Soft’ Back Into Software” — http://dojo.nearsoft.com/episodes/alex-bunardzic/ (Streamed live on November 18, 2015)

My Presentations was originally published in Alex Bunardzic on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One could argue that history of technology can be traced by looking at the history of delivery channels. Even in the early days of civilization, delivery channels played major role in the society. For example, Roman roads contributed to the dominance of the Roman Empire more than 2,000 years ago. Many other historical examples abound, which we will not dwell on here in the interest of brevity.

Today, we see that virtual delivery channels have become ubiquitous. Starting with the early days of telegraphy, which then grew into telephony, radio, television, and finally computer networks, productivity and comfort grew with the progress of delivery channels.

Standards

When it comes to technological progress, standards are vitally important. For example, during the early days of rail, there was considerable variation in track gauges (the spacing of the rails on a railway track). Such unpredictable variation could be hazardous for trains travelling from one part of the country/continent to another part.

Today, we have a standard, or international gauge dictating the spacing of the rails. Some variations in the spacing are deemed safe, however it makes sense for all manufactures to comply with the international standards.

The same principle applies to other channels of delivery. An example that applies worldwide is delivery of recorded music performances. All recorded music could be delivered to listeners via vinyl records. This analog sound storage medium is fully standardized, which means it will be fully usable anywhere in the world.

Delivering digital content has been standardized so that it can be consumed anywhere in the world. The delivery channel of digital content is the web browser. If an author wishes to reach as large audience as possible, the author is advised to prepare and package their content by respecting the standards imposed on all web browsers. Failing to do so will result in inability of potential consumers/customers to enjoy the delivered content.

Non-Standard Delivery Channels

As we’ve seen, web browsers are fully standardized delivery channels which enable consumption of digital content. Not all digital delivery channels are standardized by respecting the de facto established standards. And that could pose serious problems.

One example are so-called instant messaging channels. Many such channels abound on the market today. The most prominent certainly are Facebook Messenger, Facebook WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TencentQQ, Apple iMessage, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Microsoft Skype, Line, Telegram, and many more. The proliferation of these channels is problematic. Why do we say so?

Unlike email (which is another digital content delivery channel), where a person sending an email message needs not be concerned about the receiving end, when sending an instant message, the sender is bound to some proprietary channel. For example, one cannot use WeChat client in order to send an instant message to someone who is using Facebook Messenger client. And vice versa, of course.

With email, which complies with standard open protocols (SMTP, IMAP, POP3), it is irrelevant which client is being used for sending an email and which client is being used for receiving/consuming that email. The essential importance of complying with standards is obvious in the case of an email. That compliance is nowhere to be found when it comes to the technology used for sending/receiving instant messages/text messages.

Conclusion

A lot of effort seems to have been invested in the nascent technology known as chatbots. Most of the newest generation of chatbots seem tailored to function inside one of the above listed proprietary instant messaging channels. And because most of those instant messaging channels are not built to comply with open standards protocols, the bots hosted within those channels do not posses necessary resilience and longevity. The chatbots of today are doomed to operate inside walled gardens. There is an urgent need to switch from using proprietary delivery channels to using open source channels based on open publicly vetted standard protocols.

Similar to how when building web apps one is expected to comply with the w3c standards, we must strive to establish standards for delivering instant messages. Without such standards in place, the bots we’re building will end up being nothing more than crippleware.

A Call For Standardized Delivery Channels was originally published in Alex Bunardzic on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

• Why Build Messenger Bots When You Can Build Progressive Web Apps?
• Annulling The Billion Dollar Mistake
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My Writings On Software was originally published in Alex Bunardzic on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My Writings On Chatbots And Conversational Interface was originally published in Alex Bunardzic on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.