Is anyone using bots to make their social site look busy? If so, how do the bots work? Are users told that they may encounter bots?

Re:Is anyone using bots to make their social site look busy?... by yaacovtp on Sunday April 08, 2007 @08:28PM (#10585)

Yes, they use bots to beat cheaters http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/ESP.pdf

That's different than using bots to interact with legitimate users.

Watch Luis von Ahn's presentation of the ESP game at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143&q=carnegie+mellon+image+game. It's very entertaining and you'll even learn why spammers host free porn sites even though they aren't in the porn business.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Is anyone using bots to make their social site look busy?... by amichail on Sunday April 08, 2007 @09:13PM (#10596)

From the paper:

"Having pre-recorded game play is especially useful when the game is still gaining popularity. When there are few players, only a single person will usually be playing the game at a time."

So the ESP Game does use bots to make the site look busy.

[ Parent | on HN ]