Yahoo is currently at a very interesting stage in its lifecyle. They have amassed over 700 million users into their world of services like Mail, Finance, Fantasy Sports, Messenger and more. They have been chasing search ad revenue and Google for the past decade. More importantly Yahoo has started to focus on mobile as their core growth engine which in my opinion is a smart move. There is still potential in this giant with a few refinements in their mobile division. I believe they have an exciting opportunity in their messenger application that is still in its early years on iOS.
Main Goal
With the recent media about bots and Slack (bots for enterprise), I see an interesting opportunity to capture the essence of bots for their Messenger consumer application to increase user engagement with their iOS/Android applications, but also the bigger Yahoo Ecosystem.
Current Competitors
Slack
Slack is a team communication application providing services such as real-time messaging, archiving, and to search for modern teams. It offers one-on-one messaging, private groups, persistent chat rooms, and direct messaging as well as group chats organized by topic. All content inside Slack is searchable from one search box and it integrates with a number of third-party services.
Facebook Messenger
Messenger is just like texting, but you don’t have to pay for every message (it works with your data plan). Not just for Facebook friends: Message people in your phone book and just enter a phone number to add a new contact. Update: Facebook launched a bot platform April 12 2016.
WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia — and yes, those phones can all message each other! Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends. WhatsApp will have a bot store if Facebook Messenger is successful.
Metrics
For this particular product spec, the feature will focus on the Yahoo Messenger user. Public metrics about the usage and rankings from App Annie will give us a clear indicator as to how the application is functioning and its potential uses. Looking at App Annie downloads, Yahoo Messenger is a Top 100 contender in the Social Category. Over the past year, the ranking has been steady at 78. With the new feature, we can increase Yahoo’s social ranking and lead users to Yahoo’s other mobile apps.
Success Metrics To Measure for this Feature
- % increase in ad revenue on mobile customers
- % increase in user engagement for Messenger and existing Yahoo Ecosystem
User Stories
User Story#1: As a user of Yahoo Messenger, I want to send finance news to my friend instead of getting the link from Yahoo Finance App.
- The user must have a registered account with Yahoo to use messenger. They must have at least one contact to message for this feature to work.
- In Settings, Enable Bots in conversation.
- Turn on slash commands for specific words like finance.
- User selects with messages tab, and start a conversation with the person.
- An auto-complete textbox will show available options to send finance news.
- User types “/finance-stock” and selects a specific stock news item from your portfolio in the Yahoo Finance App.
- User chooses an article to send the other user.
- User doesn’t leave the app to find the link; the bot generates the link.
- User opens the link in their default mobile browser.
User Story#2: As a user of Yahoo Messenger, I want to send tomorrow’s weather to my friend for our biking trip instead of sharing from Yahoo Weather App.
- The user must have a registered account with Yahoo to use messenger. They must have at least one contact to message for this feature to work.
- In Settings, Enable Bots in conversation.
- Turn on slash commands for specific words in the Yahoo Weather App.
- User selects with messages tab, and start a conversation with the person.
- An auto-complete textbox will show available options to send tomorrow’s weather.
- User types “/weather-tomorrow”
- User sends the weather from Yahoo Weather to her friend.
- User doesn’t leave the app to find the link; the bot generates the link.
- User opens the link in their default mobile browser.
Development — Building a Yahoo Bot
Now for the fun part. Let’s build a bot to demonstrate the above functionality. Keep in mind the actual development for this feature would be extensive and take longer than a day to complete. For this specific feature, I will build the Yahoo Bot within a third party tool called API.ai.
Limitations
- Yahoo does not have a bot development in place, so bot will be built within Slack.
- This feature is a MVP to showcase what can be done with bots
Pictures
Basically, the bot pulls information from Yahoo Finance depending on if I ask it for Google news or Yahoo news.
More on this project can be viewed in the link below.
https://medium.com/open-product-management/yahoo-building-bots-for-the-messenger-app-2b43175ae2eb