The interesting discussion surrounding my last forum contribution about whether people perceive chatbots as more articulate/versatile than scripted Virtual Assistants, made me realise we have something of a hybrid with the emerging versions of MOR velmais on http://www.myownreporter.com
We are just connecting/blending their chatting ability and AI memories with the site´s structured search function (currently focussed solely on searching news about the EU from independent Brussels´agencies) for our impending launch. So please take a look at the attached screenshot of the MOR home page & tell us what you think of this sneak preview.

Can’t really see much there.  I had a look at this MOR site before and I thought it looked interesting.

I don’t know though, why pay for something that you can do already with Google or maybe I am missing the idea ?  Or use free services like Feedly…

Also why do they describe them as ‘organic’ ?

Please educate me

Hi Roger, glad you asked! Feedly is a great site for laying out and ordering information you want to collect & refer back to, better than static bookmarks. Similarly, google searches are “static lists” of results you read passively by scrolling down the page.

In both web 2.0 instances, it is not really interactive,  so computers are not engaging with the user. Instead you are determining the input, requesting info, and then the computer responds to you.

The computer unilaterally produces results and you passively consume what is delivered by the algorithms of search engines and web design.

By contrast, myownreporter will be delivering a genuinely interactive experience, to date only provided by chatbots conversing in a limited fashion with humans and online Virtual Assistants helping users get info they want by interacting with them “live”.

What you pay MOR for is a bilateral information gathering service - MOR velmais use their artificial intelligence to know what you might search for, ask you about it, deliver, respond, & engage with you alone, building an exclusive relationship.

It is a more human like interaction which is “live” in the sense it is a two way/bilateral exchange of information that is also personalised.

It is organic because MOR velmais will become people’s pets online, without wishing to demean them . They have fledgling intelligence like a young human or an animal that can learn tricks and so communicate with their carers, adult humans.

Just as you buy a pet from the store and then pay for its daily food, accessories and vet bills, you will need to pay us a “maintenance” fee to make sure your MOR velmai is fit, healthy and developing normally under your personal care and supervision.

So, do you plan a mobile application to interface with your service?

Yes we are. It is step by step at the moment…

Hi Tania, thanks for your informative reply, I understand better now what you/they are aiming to do.  It does sounds interesting stuff, I hadn’t really thought of the possibility of these characters being like a kind of pet as you say.  That’s quite neat actually.  And indeed, I imagine you would have to be nice to them to get the best results !

I would like to see this on mobile devices too at some time, specifically Android (I was one of those people who did not sign my soul away to Apple).  I hope I can try a demo or something soon, good luck with your work

MyOwnReporter.com is a good idea.

Thanks for the encouragement.
We need to iron out more bugs than we thought and now have approximately a two week delay till going fully live. 
This means getting about a dozen people to test it for us, and we are starting the guinea pig process this week.  So thanks for your patience, you know how these development issues are !

Absolutely Tania. I did a much smaller, much simpler, online news project and it took some patience to work with the news feeds.