6 ms·

Show HN: Botlist – An App Store for Bots

128 points by iisbum 11y ago

iisbum 11y ago
Very happy to launch our MVP for Botlist. We hope someday it will become a fully fledged store, but for now we're working towards building a complete directory of bots available on every platform.
- karimdag 11y ago
  I've seen this on Product Hunt but couldn't comment so now that I have the chance to, Here's what I want to say: - first, awesome idea. This would make things way easier. - second, say that I have built a bot, then what ? Would it follow the same philosophy as the regular App Store? (Meaning you upload then people download or buy) - Third, you should add a FAQ and a roadmap so that people can help! (Even with just an idea)
chillydawg 11y ago
Are these bots just for slack? What do you consider to be a "bot"?
- colinbartlett 11y ago
  Hopefully the author can weigh in a bit on what they consider a bot. I have a SaaS app that posts to Hipchat/Flowdock/Slack and includes a Slack slash command for interacting with it. I am presuming that qualifies as a "bot" but it's certainly no AI.
- spinlock 11y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. I'll admit that I'm out of the loop when it comes to slack but I've heard they don't support IRC. Seems too bad to me as IRC would make a great platform for all bots rather than just for one platform.
  - tyrust 11y ago
    Slack has an IRC gateway - https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connecting-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connectin...
asimuvPR 11y ago
Visited the site on mobile and could not find a little explanation about what the goal of the site is. Maybe a short introduction might work. This seems interesting but it's not fully clear what it aims to do now and in the future. :)
- bentossell 11y ago
  Gotcha! Will look into adding that :)
an4rchy 11y ago
This is a pretty neat idea. I know it's probably an MVP but a description of what the bot does instead of forcing the user to click through to the bot website.
- ajpgrealish 11y ago
  There are some very short descriptions of what each bot does but it's not enough to help me decide if it is what I need. I searched for a JIRA bot to connect to slack but clicking the bot link took me to the install page rather than more info.
  - bentossell 11y ago
    yeah we want to add more info on each bot detail page, then give the option for direct 'install' or landing page.
bentossell 11y ago
Hey! I'm one of the makers here Appreciate any thoughts anyone else. WE are all ears :) Mobile responsive isnt in place yet so apologies for that. Trying to get bots/AI from different platforms in one central, 3rd party place - not owned by Facebook/Slack/Kik etc. We are looking to update more information - probably giving the bot makers the ability to take control of their page, add more info and images so hopefully that will help. Has been a time-consuming manual process so far. Happy to hear feedback! But yes, just a bare bones MVP for now
- colinbartlett 11y ago
  Very cool site! I can see this fleshing out to be a very useful aggregator. I just submitted my bot StatusGator (https://statusgator.com https://statusgator.com) and I'm wondering more about what that $50 payment would get me if I paid for a quick review. Someone would actually sign up for my service and try it out then post a review on your site?
- joshbaptiste 11y ago
  Saw an error and a PHP call stack and relative directories, should disable that from being visible on a production webpage.
  - iisbum 11y ago
    Fixing that right now.
- sailfast 11y ago
  I'd be interested in an aggregation that indicates support for other platforms such as Mattermost, or plugins that adapt existing bots to other similar ecosystems (including IRC, XMPP, etc)
- existencebox 11y ago
  Apologies for the brief comment since I only had a moment to glance at it between work, but what stood out to me is that there is no XMPP section for "platform". (I ask selfishly due to writing XMPP based bots for various video games that host their chat over the protocol.) Otherwise, decent idea, will likely use it to point at my bots github pages if it sticks around :)
drewry 11y ago
I'm getting "Whoops, looks like something went wrong." when trying to register.
- bentossell 11y ago
  hmm we've had a couple of instances so I will look into it! Sorry about that.
  - drewry 11y ago
    Looks like it's working now, thanks!
    - strictnein 11y ago
      Getting this now: 502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.8.0
      - bentossell 11y ago
        should be back up in next 10 mins! Had overwhelming response today, sorry
        prdonahue 11y ago
        May want to throw CloudFlare in front. (Disclaimer: I work there.)
amflare 11y ago
My #1 question is where is the About Page? Even if it's just a small synopsis, I'd like to know what this is, and what it is meant to do.
findjashua 11y ago
getting the following error: http://imgur.com/Duxzl6W http://imgur.com/Duxzl6W
- iisbum 11y ago
  We didn't quite get zero downtime deploys worked out for our MVP :) If you refresh thing should be working now. Thanks!
  - findjashua 11y ago
    now i'm getting 502s :-(
jedberg 11y ago
Interesting business model. It's free to submit, but if you want to show up "quickly" you have to pay $50. Even though it hurts me as a bot owner, I think that's really clever!
harry_botter 11y ago
Saw botpages.com on Product Hunt last week. It looks like they're free to submit.
arcameron 11y ago
Improvement: If I navigate to https://botlist.co/bots/filter?platform=5 https://botlist.co/bots/filter?platform=5, then I should be able to see what each bot claims to do, without needing to click in to the #show page
- bentossell 11y ago
  yeh we are currently trying to figure out if taglines can be included in a way that doesnt make the site look too busy/messy. possibly a 'quick-view'
woodruffw 11y ago
Any plans for an IRC category?
swalsh 11y ago
You should resubmit this as Apply HN:
toyg 11y ago
502 bad gateway. It's dead, Jim.
- r3bl 11y ago
  Same thing happening here. Can someone who had a chance to visit it explain to me what this is? If I understood the rest of the comments correctly, it's a list of Slack bots?
- bentossell 11y ago
  Had such an overwhelming response! Are fixing now. Sorry for down-time!
- eb0la 11y ago
  I think we're going to need a bot to tell us when something that shows on HN is back online :-)
studentrunnr 11y ago
yikes - link doesn't work!
yeukhon 11y ago
My first foremost suggestion: try not to ask for password as a new site. I am not saying I'd only trust the big players (they were once a startup or a little project to begin with), but I would enjoy more if I can reuse Google/Twitter/FB or whatever as an option. Next, any plan for validating bot's security and privacy? Rules for submission (must be open source etc?) Fake feedback is always a tough war in real monetize app store.
tomc1985 11y ago
Ugh. Now we're gonna be hearing about chatbots for the next 5 years :(
tomc1985 11y ago
Also can we call these something else? Bot is too overloaded a term. "Chatbot" is more accurate.
sourcd 11y ago
Nice design & +1 for the groundwork. How will you protect your hard work from someone who just wants to scrape and clone it ? There's also botpages.com discussed 3 days ago here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11456651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11456651
dreeves 11y ago
Beautiful collection! I'd love to convince you to reject from the collection any smarmbot emails -- http://blog.beeminder.com/smarmbot http://blog.beeminder.com/smarmbot -- which I define as emails that pretend to be sent personally ("I noticed that you recently..."). I realize a lot of hackers (I've argued with @patio11 about this) don't see the problem with those. Maybe because it's inconceivable to us nerds how anyone could be deceived by them. But some people are and I think the best of both worlds can be achieved by either saying "we" instead of "I" -- as in "all of us, including the program that sends these emails!" -- or just appending something like "This email is obviously automated but you can reply to it and it will go straight to me personally!".
fiatjaf 10y ago
I want to sell my bot which currently people are using for free, where can I do if not in an App Store?

128 points by iisbum 11y ago

Very happy to launch our MVP for Botlist. We hope someday it will become a fully fledged store, but for now we're working towards building a complete directory of bots available on every platform.

karimdag 11y ago
I've seen this on Product Hunt but couldn't comment so now that I have the chance to, Here's what I want to say: - first, awesome idea. This would make things way easier. - second, say that I have built a bot, then what ? Would it follow the same philosophy as the regular App Store? (Meaning you upload then people download or buy) - Third, you should add a FAQ and a roadmap so that people can help! (Even with just an idea)

chillydawg 11y ago

Are these bots just for slack? What do you consider to be a "bot"?

colinbartlett 11y ago
Hopefully the author can weigh in a bit on what they consider a bot. I have a SaaS app that posts to Hipchat/Flowdock/Slack and includes a Slack slash command for interacting with it. I am presuming that qualifies as a "bot" but it's certainly no AI.
spinlock 11y ago
I was thinking the same thing. I'll admit that I'm out of the loop when it comes to slack but I've heard they don't support IRC. Seems too bad to me as IRC would make a great platform for all bots rather than just for one platform.
- tyrust 11y ago
  Slack has an IRC gateway - https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connecting-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connectin...

asimuvPR 11y ago

Visited the site on mobile and could not find a little explanation about what the goal of the site is. Maybe a short introduction might work. This seems interesting but it's not fully clear what it aims to do now and in the future. :)

bentossell 11y ago
Gotcha! Will look into adding that :)

an4rchy 11y ago

This is a pretty neat idea. I know it's probably an MVP but a description of what the bot does instead of forcing the user to click through to the bot website.

ajpgrealish 11y ago
There are some very short descriptions of what each bot does but it's not enough to help me decide if it is what I need. I searched for a JIRA bot to connect to slack but clicking the bot link took me to the install page rather than more info.
- bentossell 11y ago
  yeah we want to add more info on each bot detail page, then give the option for direct 'install' or landing page.

bentossell 11y ago

Hey! I'm one of the makers here Appreciate any thoughts anyone else. WE are all ears :) Mobile responsive isnt in place yet so apologies for that. Trying to get bots/AI from different platforms in one central, 3rd party place - not owned by Facebook/Slack/Kik etc. We are looking to update more information - probably giving the bot makers the ability to take control of their page, add more info and images so hopefully that will help. Has been a time-consuming manual process so far. Happy to hear feedback! But yes, just a bare bones MVP for now

colinbartlett 11y ago
Very cool site! I can see this fleshing out to be a very useful aggregator. I just submitted my bot StatusGator (https://statusgator.com https://statusgator.com) and I'm wondering more about what that $50 payment would get me if I paid for a quick review. Someone would actually sign up for my service and try it out then post a review on your site?
joshbaptiste 11y ago
Saw an error and a PHP call stack and relative directories, should disable that from being visible on a production webpage.
- iisbum 11y ago
  Fixing that right now.
sailfast 11y ago
I'd be interested in an aggregation that indicates support for other platforms such as Mattermost, or plugins that adapt existing bots to other similar ecosystems (including IRC, XMPP, etc)
existencebox 11y ago
Apologies for the brief comment since I only had a moment to glance at it between work, but what stood out to me is that there is no XMPP section for "platform". (I ask selfishly due to writing XMPP based bots for various video games that host their chat over the protocol.) Otherwise, decent idea, will likely use it to point at my bots github pages if it sticks around :)

drewry 11y ago

I'm getting "Whoops, looks like something went wrong." when trying to register.

bentossell 11y ago
hmm we've had a couple of instances so I will look into it! Sorry about that.
- drewry 11y ago
  Looks like it's working now, thanks!
  - strictnein 11y ago
    Getting this now: 502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.8.0
    - bentossell 11y ago
      should be back up in next 10 mins! Had overwhelming response today, sorry
      - prdonahue 11y ago
        May want to throw CloudFlare in front. (Disclaimer: I work there.)

amflare 11y ago

My #1 question is where is the About Page? Even if it's just a small synopsis, I'd like to know what this is, and what it is meant to do.

findjashua 11y ago

getting the following error: http://imgur.com/Duxzl6W http://imgur.com/Duxzl6W

iisbum 11y ago
We didn't quite get zero downtime deploys worked out for our MVP :) If you refresh thing should be working now. Thanks!
- findjashua 11y ago
  now i'm getting 502s :-(

jedberg 11y ago

Interesting business model. It's free to submit, but if you want to show up "quickly" you have to pay $50. Even though it hurts me as a bot owner, I think that's really clever!

harry_botter 11y ago

Saw botpages.com on Product Hunt last week. It looks like they're free to submit.

arcameron 11y ago

Improvement: If I navigate to https://botlist.co/bots/filter?platform=5 https://botlist.co/bots/filter?platform=5, then I should be able to see what each bot claims to do, without needing to click in to the #show page

bentossell 11y ago
yeh we are currently trying to figure out if taglines can be included in a way that doesnt make the site look too busy/messy. possibly a 'quick-view'

woodruffw 11y ago

Any plans for an IRC category?

swalsh 11y ago

You should resubmit this as Apply HN:

toyg 11y ago

502 bad gateway. It's dead, Jim.

r3bl 11y ago
Same thing happening here. Can someone who had a chance to visit it explain to me what this is? If I understood the rest of the comments correctly, it's a list of Slack bots?
bentossell 11y ago
Had such an overwhelming response! Are fixing now. Sorry for down-time!
eb0la 11y ago
I think we're going to need a bot to tell us when something that shows on HN is back online :-)

studentrunnr 11y ago

yikes - link doesn't work!

yeukhon 11y ago

My first foremost suggestion: try not to ask for password as a new site. I am not saying I'd only trust the big players (they were once a startup or a little project to begin with), but I would enjoy more if I can reuse Google/Twitter/FB or whatever as an option. Next, any plan for validating bot's security and privacy? Rules for submission (must be open source etc?) Fake feedback is always a tough war in real monetize app store.

tomc1985 11y ago

Ugh. Now we're gonna be hearing about chatbots for the next 5 years :(

tomc1985 11y ago

Also can we call these something else? Bot is too overloaded a term. "Chatbot" is more accurate.

sourcd 11y ago

Nice design & +1 for the groundwork. How will you protect your hard work from someone who just wants to scrape and clone it ? There's also botpages.com discussed 3 days ago here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11456651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11456651

dreeves 11y ago

Beautiful collection! I'd love to convince you to reject from the collection any smarmbot emails -- http://blog.beeminder.com/smarmbot http://blog.beeminder.com/smarmbot -- which I define as emails that pretend to be sent personally ("I noticed that you recently..."). I realize a lot of hackers (I've argued with @patio11 about this) don't see the problem with those. Maybe because it's inconceivable to us nerds how anyone could be deceived by them. But some people are and I think the best of both worlds can be achieved by either saying "we" instead of "I" -- as in "all of us, including the program that sends these emails!" -- or just appending something like "This email is obviously automated but you can reply to it and it will go straight to me personally!".

fiatjaf 10y ago

I want to sell my bot which currently people are using for free, where can I do if not in an App Store?