everything you want to know about it

Telegram is often compared to WhatsApp, but this is actually not justified. Androidworld reader Tom is a Telegram expert and once in a while explains why Telegram is so useful. This time it’s the turn of the handy bots in Telegram.

Telegram and bots

In my previous article, you learned how to create a channel to keep those at home informed during your vacation. Perhaps you have now also created playlist channels and uploaded your own music because Telegram also has a great music player. Telegram is full of innovative options that few people manage to find. That’s why you recently found “Telegram features” at the bottom of the side menu, a channel full of tips. This time I will talk a little more about bots and how to use them. You can roughly divide bots into three types: Inline bots, Bots and Userbots.

bots

Bots are automated users that you can send one-on-one messages to and get something in return. eg The bot @IFTTT may ask you to send all RSS feeds from a website to your channel. @GmailBot retrieves your Gmail so you can read the emails without the Gmail app and with the @myNSbot you will never be on the wrong platform again. In most bots you can find the search commands via /help, but more and more bots have a good menu. However, the development of bots is still in its infancy and dependent on third parties, Telegram only offers the possibility and few examples.

Inline Bots

Inline bots are bots that the common user will use the most. Imagine you chat with a friend to go to the cinema and wonder if Blackbird is a good movie. Start a message with @imdb blackbird, choose the right Blackbird movie and you have all the information in the chat at your fingertips. Some bots may ask to log in to their app or, for example, @foursquare asks for your location to show a restaurant nearby. Also try @wiki @gif @bing @vid @music @foursquare @youtube.

Userbots

I can be brief about Userbots, don’t use them unless you made it yourself. This type of bot can do everything you can do yourself but you don’t know the purpose of the maker and so your data is not safe. This type of bot is used by programmers to, for example, filter messages with # so that it does not have to read hundreds of messages. A user bot can also monitor the language use in a group, which is useful, but unfortunately criminals can also program.

The bot software has now been updated and developers can get started with payment options in Telegram. @TestStore and @shopbot are an example of this. So bots are good tools for group and channel managers.

Would you like to play around with making a bot yourself? Then @BotFather is the place to start and GitHub has open source samples you can use. Everything is described in detail on the Telegram website.

Are you going to get started with the bots in Telegram or are you already using them? Let us know in the comments below this article!