Remember back in the early days on instant messaging when people figured out that they could set up chatbots that users would interact with? Yeah, they were fun for like 20 minutes. But don’t tell Google that — they’re bringing one back today!
Google Talk Guru is an “experimental” Google Labs service that allows you to chat with a bot to get information you’re looking for. What kind of information? Sports results, weather, definitions, translations, etc.
Again, this is nothing new, but Google does tend to have more information at their disposal than just about anyone else on the planet. So perhaps this chatbot will be more useful than the ones I used in 1997. To try it out, here are the rules:
1. Sign into a chat client that supports Google Talk
2. Send a chat invitation to guru@googlelabs.com or click the “Invite myself to chat with Guru” link below.
3. Find guru in your contact list and send chat queries to guru
Remember too that just about a year ago, Google bought Aardvark, a startup that also used chat to answer questions. I assume this is more like doing a traditional Google Search query, but still, something to think about. Related: what the hell is Google doing with Aardvark? Anything?
[thanks Steve]