054:Chatbot 崛起、失败以及未来的进化路径
大概从 2015 年下半年开始,Chatbot 迅速成为硅谷投资人和科技媒体的「宠儿」,比如 Evernote 创始人、现投资人的 Phil Libin 就将自己对 Chatbot 的惊喜形容为 2007 年排队 4 小时买下 iPhone 时的心情:
There’s an interesting leading indicator of when a new industry is about to go mainstream: the limiting factor shifts from technology to design. Developing mobile apps before the iPhone was all about fitting into cramped resources and figuring out clever ways to cheat the limitations. After 2007, it was about the design. That’s not to say that the tech stopped being important or stopped improving; just compare the massive improvements under the hood over the past few years; but the real difference between successful apps and also-rans usually came down to design. I think bots are going to be entering that phase now.
但这个理由并不充分,早在差不多两年前,a16z 的Benedict Evans 在推演移动互联网下一个变革机遇时就认为,由于基于移动平台的消息类应用将成为移动端进化的主要变量,因此由消息应用衍生出的「应用里的应用」将成为用户注意力消费的新中心。
这个推断逻辑也是过去几年全球范围内用户消费变化的写照。微信、Facebook Messenger都已成为不同地区消息类应用的绝对垄断者,两者现在也越来越多迈入一个「战区」——连接一切。
