Can chat bots build community around news updates?
Ricardo Bilton, Nieman Lab,How can a news organization use (Facebook) Messenger to start a genuine conversation with readers at scale? Can messaging be a viable way to field news tips from readers? And is there a better way to use Messenger to get stories out to people and make people more aware of the work that (Honolulu) Civil Beat does?
Those were the questions for a new chat bot launched by the Honolulu Civil Beat. According to a Nieman Lab article, the experiment with the bot—which had mixed results—offered readers a closer way to connect with the organization, beyond comments, email and phone.