Telegram bolsters its bots platform to show who is boss

Telegram Messenger introduced bots to its platform last year and it was an interesting update. You could now interact with autonomous programs that delivered certain information to you like the weather, delivering news and the likes.

The company was not done with bots however, where they decided to announce inline bots. Unlike the previous bots where you chat with them in a timeline manner, inline bots were slightly different. You can launch them while on the text bar by starting with the @ character then the name of the bot. Some of the inline bots you can try include @imdb to search for movies or @gif to load gifs.

These bots have worked well over the time they have been available and Telegram is not done yet with its bots platform. They announced the Bot 2.0 update that comes with a slew of new features which include inline keyboards, URL buttons, location permissions, on-the-fly message editing and callback functionality.

One of the new bots that were announced to show off the new functionality thanks to the Bot 2.0 update is the @music bot. When you search for it just like a regular contact, its current name is Classical music since Telegram was only able to deliver classical music at the time. On the user interface, there is an inline keyboard within the thread that allows you to interact with the bot without sending messages directly to the bot. As you click on the options, it updates itself just like how a typical USSD functions.

It also works in inline mode just like the other inline bots (@gif or @imdb) where you only need to start with @music and then you can search for the classical music of choice. This also works for the other bots that were introduced like @youtube.

However when it comes to the @foursquare bot, it highlights a new feature baked into the Bot 2.0 update: Location permissions. When you type @foursquare , it will ask you to allow it to know your location so that it can display venues you can attend nearby.

This is a solid update by Telegram and it comes at a time when Facebook is expected to launch its bots platform for Messenger today which will officially launch the era of bots within chatting platforms.