Akibot Microblogging Groupware Launches Beta
Stan Gibson | Date: 07-22-09 | Comments: 1
- Akibot is trying to answer the question first raised by Twitter three years ago: Is there a business purpose for microblogging?
Take microblogging, add a dash of artificial intelligence
and voila – you’ve got Akibot. Now in a private
beta program that was launched on July
19, Akibot is trying to answer the question first raised by Twitter three years ago: Is there a business
purpose for microblogging?
“Akibot
incorporates a natural language processing module. It understands your update.
And it also has a text analyzer – it looks for structure, including nouns,
verbs and pronouns,” said Akibot founder Marcelo Pham. The result: Akibot can
understand and act on messages. “Akibot is like another user, like a person,”
said Pham. “Knowing your location and that you fly every month, it can tell you
to check out low fares,” he explained.
Pham, who
has been running a software consultancy in West Palm Beach,
Fla., called Software Solutions sine 2005, had
not even heard of Twitter until March, 2009 when one of his clients suggested
he follow him on it. “I liked the idea – but I didn’t see any use for myself
because I’m kind of a private person. Twitter is for the masses – perhaps for
celebrities to be in contact with their fans. However, the micromessage
concept forces you to be brief – and encourages you to be frequent. I saw a use
for corporate applications,” Pham said.
Akibot is
not alone in attempting to adapt microblogging to corporate purposes. Yammer, Present.ly
and Socialtext all have the same goal
in mind, but are taking slightly different approaches.
Akibot is hosted
on Google App Engine. Pham
envisions it developing into a communications hub that interacts with
enterprise software. User charges, when instituted, are likely to be comparable
to those of other microblogging tools, said Pham.
Not yet
incorporated, Akibot has three employees and is self-funded, although Pham is
on the lookout for venture capital. Business scenarios include getting acquired
by a bigger player, Pham said.
