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For any other value, FORECAST.ETS will return the #NUM! error. Perhaps the future doesn’t have to look quite so different from the past.Maximum supported seasonality is 8,760 (number of hours in a year). A hybrid of chat and buttons could make bots actually usable.
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And to attract developers, it needs an audience. To win messaging, Facebook may need bots. Marcus believes these will assist with “re-engagement and consistency.”įacebook is essentially marrying the conversational responsiveness and accessibility of chatbots with the familiarity and intuitive interface of apps you browse. Hidden within a three-line hamburger button at the bottom of the screen, it can be opened to reveal a high-level menu of commands like “Go Shopping”, “On Sale”, “Top Sellers”, and “Help”.
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When asked your favorite movie genre, you’ll be able to tap Comedy or Action instead of fumbling with typing in commands like “Funny” or “War” that the bot might not understand.įacebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus writes that Quick Replies “offer a more guided experience for people as they interact with your bot, which helps with expectation management.” Up to 10 buttons can be shown, and they’ll disappear from the chat history leaving only the selected button, which makes it much easier to read back through a conversation with a bot and figure out what happened.įor bots with a more hierarchical style where users might want to dig into a certain utility, then pop back out to the initial options, Facebook is offering the persistent menu seen here. With Quick Replies seen above, Messenger can surface examples of responses to a question posed by a bot. Bot makers can find out how at Facebook’s developer blog and new Messenger blog. The new features are optional for developers to add, but they really should integrate them. But these new commands could rescue the chatbot platform from becoming the next Facebook Home. Unfortunately, Facebook Messenger and its defective launch examples have soured some people on the whole concept of chatbots.
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This in turn led people to quit using bots in frustration, and go back to traditional app and website interfaces.įacebook Messenger bets on bots (full panel) #TCDisrupt People didn’t know what text commands triggered what functions in apps, leading the bots to misunderstand users’ replies. When Facebook launched its chatbot platform at its F8 conference, it seemed half-baked. While lauded as the future of interfaces, few chatbots have seen widespread use. Together, these new features could make chatbots more inviting to the general public who might have been baffled before. And if customers opt in, developers will be able to connect these customers’ accounts to Messenger accounts to allow more seamless communication with them.
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People can now rate bots with one to five stars to teach developers how to improve, though there’s no word on the chatbot analytics Facebook has promised. Messenger bots can also now send videos, audio, GIFs, and files so they can encompass wider range of use cases. So today Facebook Messenger is giving chatbot developers new “Quick Reply” buttons and persistent menu options to make their bots easier to navigate. “What do I type?” is the big question making chatbots hard to use.
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