Chatbots are the next big thing in the hot Artificial Intelligence market.

For the uninitiated, chatbots are artificial intelligence powered (or rule based) computer programs that can mimic human behavior while interacting with actual humans. In simpler words, chatbots are smart programs that can talk to a human in humanly way.

I had a free weekend so I decided to develop such chatbot.

I started my chatbot hunt with the Google search, “chatbot tutorial”. Unsurprisingly, I was presented dozens of tutorials.

Heck, few years back when chatbots were relatively unheard of, now there are super smart APIs which can create bots without writing a single line of code.

I found Facebook’s Messenger APIs powerful to work with and  wanted to write some code. Didn’t want to use drag and drop online builders to build the bot.

Soon my search for tutorial with above requirements ended when I found a Sitepoint Tutorial.

It’s Facebook Messenger chatbot that uses Open Movie Database (OMDb) APIs to present details of movies.

Try it out at: http://m.me/1595800180494652

Note: OMDb API has gone private now. The bot may stop fetching movie details. Nevertheless, you can always give it a shot.

Code is open source and can be found at my GitHub: https://github.com/darpandodiya/omdb-fb-bot

Technology Stack:

• Node.js – Backend express server
• MongoDB – To persist one movie result per user (mlab.com)
• Heroku Platform – Hosting Node Application (I love the name of servers that Heroku provides. My app is hosted on Serene Reaches)
• Facebook Messenger APIs

Action speaks louder than words 😀

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