He comes on board to shore up the financial side of the team and will be our advisor in this vertical.

Team Ala welcomes Mr. Singh

We are happy to get good reviews by people from the industry..leads me to believe we must be doing something right!!!

Akshat

Rest API Released

We have released a REST API, now anybody using any language / platform can integrate with Alabot

You can now use the API for two purposes:-

• Using a service already provided by Alabot , you can forward an user message to Alabot and he would process the message , map it to the appropriate service and respond.

• In another case you might just want Alabot to do an NLP analysis , for example, you might have business API hosted at your end and want to use Alabot process user messages and get all the parameters required for an API call, for example lets consider a travel domain example , where user requests for a ticket …

• user : I wnt 1 tickt from new york to lndn on 26 mrch - alabot can do an NLP analysis and return the output that you can call your backend or GDS

• Alabot response after NLP analysis : RestApiCall:{montht=march, sourceCity=new york, dayt=26, adultst=1, destCity=london}

• Example :

http://alabot-api-srver-here/api/msg=userMsgHere

&key=PutYourApiACcessKeyHere&clientid=PutYourClientIDHere

Pl refer to REST API documentation for details: Rest API Documentation

You will need an API access key for making REST calls also an server side configuration if service requested is new or unique to your company

• Please write a email to info@alabot.com stating your requirements , about your company and estimated /maximum number of API calls in a day
• Or just fill out Solution request form

Who is this service for?

Some suggestions from our side based on customer feedback:-

• Mobile VAS Providers/Telecom /SMS aggregators , : They want to use Alabot or AI / NLP module for service discovery and NLP analysis . User SMS or WAP messages are forwarded to alabot where he analyzes text, maps it to the service and then does NLP analysis OR opens an interactive session with user if more information is required. Basic problem with existing services are that they are keyword based and requires the user to remember jargon and also remember the service short code or you need to download a special mobile application for specific set of mobile sets like symbian OS, windows CE and j2me profile , if you have have Motorola(like me) or even a different version of phone you might run out of luck !!
  So rather than sending an sms to a shortcode like “bank bal act 2099876 “or travel source “london dest new york dt 04/06/08″ you can just send a sms like “whts my bank balnce and email me accnt sumary my pin is 129854″ or “I wnt a tickt frm lndn to new york on 4 mrch” to a single long or short code and alabot will find the context and respond , order of sentences/grammar/spelling mistakes do not matter . Alabot can also work with conjunction of Speech recognition engine so act like Interactive voice IVR

• Support : Companies want to decrease their support cost specially their L1 support calls , eg what is the status of my transaction id 8778687, when will you deliver X , I have X problem pl connect me to right person /dept. Alabot can operate over embedded web chat ,sms ,IM, parse emails and respond.

• Mobile search : Lots of companies have contaced us for mobile search, where a user needs THE most relevant single result (which is quite different from google or yahoo search which does text search and returns tons of matching results) . Alabot differs as it can infer the context , location , habit of user and then provide single most relevant answer

• Content providers / local Search : Some Content providers /Local search companies are interested in integrating as users can ask in their language and service can now be expanded to mobile , IM , web chat . They can also embed Alasense and monetize their content immediately (Alasense = Our advt and ecom platform)

• Misc : Social networking , legal processing

Do you feel integrating your services with alabot will enhance user experience /cut down manual costs /or port your services to multiple platforms like mobile, IM , web chat – send us a mail (info@alabot.com )

We have been chosen by Headstart to present Alabot at their conference in Bangalore.

It is a big honour for us to be in the top 5 innovations across India. We thank the panelists and the organisers.

http://headstart.in/innerpage.php?img=consumer&content=consumer

Time for a beer for me and some herbal tea for GP

I would like to also thank Rahul “Thaks” Singh for his dogged support, Vivek for coming on board and helping GP in building the software. Niru for extending free legal help and for allowing me to use my mobile to talk to the team / Ala even when we are out for dinner and Amrita for not throwing GP out for sleeping at 4 am everyday…

Good Day

1. Using our GFA (General Fonetic Ala-go-rythm) we are able to understand any input given by the customer irrespective of syntax / language / sentence form.  It can be with regards to tickets / banking queries / CRM applications / getting emails off your desktop – anything can be talk enabled.

2. Current systems are rigid and need the user to be trained . Ala Isms  eliminates this roadblock – Talk to the application as you would talk to your banker / travel agent / secretary / friend / yourself. Build communities,  do local search without it throwing up junk and talk enable your mcommerce applications.

Telcos can embedd the Ala engine in their existing SMS based products and roll out user driven friendlier services.

| View | Upload your own

Actual Transcript from a conversation between GP and Ala

Live user example 1

(4:18 PM) gp: bby to del on 21 nov 1 adult
(4:18 PM) alabot: Please wait a moment while I do a search …. ….
(4:18 PM) alabot: For the 21 of November from mumbai to delhi I suggest the following – Indigo Rs 6000 ( Departure 7am , Arrival 10 am ), Jet Airways Rs 5500 ( Departure 9pm to Arrival 10:30 am )

Live user example 2

gp: i want a tickt bombay delhi on 21 nov
(4:22 PM) alabot: How many Travelers ? eg 2 adult 1 kid
(4:22 PM) gp: 2
(4:22 PM) alabot: Please wait a moment while I do a search …. ….
(4:22 PM) alabot: For the 21 of november from mumbai to delhi I suggest the following – Deccan Rs 7800 ( Departure 7am , Arrival 10 am ), King Fisher Rs 7800 ( Departure 9pm to Arrival 10:30 am )

Live user example 3

gp: i wnt a ticket to poone
(4:26 PM) alabot: Please tell me which city are you flying from ?
(4:26 PM) gp: del
(4:26 PM) alabot: Hi please tell me the date which you want to travel example like 21 nov or 21/11/2007 etc
(4:26 PM) gp: 21 nov
(4:26 PM) alabot: How many Travelers ? eg 2 adult 1 kid
(4:26 PM) gp: 1
(4:26 PM) alabot: Please wait a moment while I do a search …. ….
(4:26 PM) alabot: For the 21 of November I suggest the following – Spice Rs 5500 ( Departure 7am , Arrival 10 am ), Spice Rs 7800 ( Departure 9pm to Arrival 10:30 am )

These are live user tests done on gtalk. We have entered wrong spellings for cities and also jumbled up the order of buying the ticket to make the tests more life like. Questions like these will be thrown at Ala in the real world.

Read this article in the Cellular News

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/25198.php