All posts by Glaznah Gassner
| Oct 28th 2011, 11:01 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: SmartBots Newsletter #1: Welcome aboard! SmartBots performace in Oct News Story: SmartBots Newsletter #1: Welcome aboard! SmartBots performace in Oct |
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| Dear Fellow Investors, SLCAPEX Users, SL Residents! SmartBots is a _very_ developing project. We are constantly working on new services, tools and devices, usually developing 3 or 4 at time. We encourage other developers to use SmartBots abilities free of charge, making more powerful group and bot management devices. That's why I'm going to publish this Newsletter regularly from now on, telling you about SmartBots, Second Life bots, groups and other related topics. I suppose that this will be interesting for a lot of residents, since groups and bots are widely used in Second Life! However, I don't pretend to be a bestseller writer, I'm CEO in the first place, so I'm writing my newsletters based on SmartBots activity. I plan to publish one or two Newsletter issues per month. There will be no empty words, promises and self-praising. Honestly, I have no time for that. But we are really doing a lot of interesting work! This Newsletter will tell you about the things we do, and why we do them. == Financials == First of all, the SmartBots' projected income and expenses for October 2011: REVENUES: + SmartBots projected revenue: over L$360,000 EXPENSES: + Total expenses: L$170,000 NET PROFIT: = L$190,000 and over The exact financial performance will be published on November, 4th. They will include the detailed structure of the revenues and expenses in October 2011. == New services, devices and updates == This issue contains the information about SmartBots products just released, or near finished. I hope this is an interesting information for you, since it may help you making your business more effective. If you does not like the wordy reports of this kind, please write few words in forum. So, let the show begin! We've developed two new SmartBots products in October: * the most interesting, brand new device will be presented at BOTS shareholders' meeting, to be held on November 1st http://slcapex.com/forums/topic/BOTS/4402 * the second one, a new HUD to control personal bots has been just released http://www.smartbots2life.com/blog/2011/10/new-personal-bot-hud/ The following services and tools have been improved: * Interactive wizard added to setup new groups for SmartBots http://www.smartbots2life.com/blog/2011/10/new-group-listing-wizard/ * The groups limit of the personal bots has been removed http://www.smartbots2life.com/blog/2011/10/no-more-limits-42-groups-for-all-personal-bots/ Tools and services in development now: * Bot scripting language, SBSL - 95% ready http://www.smartbots2life.com/blog/2011/10/sbsl-draft-preview-is-available/ * Interactive chat through personal bot (multiple conversations, IM history, autoresponder) - 80% ready * SmartBots HTTP API - 50% ready Plans: * Developers contest * Group and bot management devices marketplace == Details == The use of the group wizard immediately increased the number of new active customers by 20% (since setting up the group is tricky, even with help of live support). We pay a lot of attention to user-friendly interfaces, thus this was the most important update. We also publishing more and more tutorial videos to help customers. Actually, the customer's support is the one of the hardest things to manage while running large company in Second Life. It's easier to organize the phone support in RL since you control what your people are doing... In Second Life, you may have dozens of support managers online, and noone will reply to customer in time. I constantly try different approaches - but I'm not ideal, and we still have drawbacks... I may tell about our experiments with live support in future Newsletters. The new personal bot HUD has been designed to replace the previous one. I have to say that we made a very handy and stylish gadget! Big thanks to our designer: the new HUD can be folded while not in use, dragged all over the screen without entering the viewer editor. Finally, it's very low lag. The new HUD will be extremely useful when we add the interactive chat support to personal bots. A lot of customers are asking to be able to talk through the bot, and receive notifications about new instant messages. New HUD supports all these features - we will use it for SmartBots live support, too. Finally, we are working to publish the new APIs for developers. We already have a lot of add-ons and 3rd-party tools available for SmartBots: providing the handy, well-documented APIs is necessary. Currently we have AdminBot, LSL library officially working. HTTP API and bot scripting language (SBSL) are coming. Experienced SL developers may use LSL libraries and HTTP APIs. For people not involved into professional programming, we are developing SBSL - simple bot scripting language. This is an event-driven language, and it can be used for roleplaying sims, games and interactive offices. Still in development, it will be released soon. == Conclusion == Thank you for reading the Newsletter. This is a very first issue, it may contain the things you are not interested in, or may miss the aspects you definitely want to know. Please post the questions you would like to ask to SLCAPEX forum. I will be glad to reveal different aspects of the business managed by me and my team: the technical aspects, the business management questions, financial details. I'll reply all questions. We (I mean all of us: me, you and other SL entrepreneurs) are working and almost living in amazing universe, making this universe more interesting, more friendly and entertaining! |
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| Nov 1st 2011, 07:47 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: BOTS brief financials and information about Shareholders Meeting News Story: BOTS brief financials and information about Shareholders Meeting Edited by moderator Nov 1st 2011, 07:59 |
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| SmartBots shown the following performance in October 2011: REVENUES: + Total revenue: L$365,493 EXPENCES: - Total expences: L$170,514 PROFIT: = Net profit: L$194,979 If you are interested to see the activity level of SmartBots' customers, visit http://www.mysmartbots.com/ and take a look at the graph. The number of invitations delivered has increased from 20K to 30K during October. The detailed financial report will be posted on November 4th. == Shareholders' Meeting == After having few conversation with people who contacted me regarding the time of the meeting, I've decided to conduct the meeting few days later, on November 6th. There are two reasons to shift the date to a weekend: 1. People are living all over the world. It's hard to login to SL at night if you were working all the day. 2. We will start providing the various bonuses for SmartBots customers buying BOTS shares within 1-2 days (we are currently setting up the automatic group inviter for BOTS' shareholders group). Taking these aspects into account, we've decided that official shareholders' meeting will be held on November 6th, 10:00AM SLT. |
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| Nov 4th 2011, 07:04 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: BOTS dividends to be paid on Nov 4th, shareholders meeting on Nov 6t News Story: BOTS dividends to be paid on Nov 4th, shareholders meeting on Nov 6t |
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| == Dividends == BOTS dividends will be paid on November 4th (as well as for EARN shares, we will publish the financials and pay dividends on every 4th). BOTS net profit in October was L$194,979 The dividends will be paid to all existing shareholders. == Shareholders meeting == We will conduct the meeting on November 6th, 10:00 AM SLT. I recommend everyone to come: I shall present a completely new device plus important update to existing service. You will be able to try them yourself, and apply for huge free subscription for new device (2 months). |
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| Nov 4th 2011, 12:35 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: BOTS & LEM: Announcing a strategic alliance News Story: BOTS & LEM: Announcing a strategic alliance |
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| I'm pleased to announce that SmartBots (BOTS) is forming the strategic alliance with Lemur Investments (LEM) to work together in Second Life and at SLCAPEX. LEM is a well-known financial company at SLCAPEX and the best choice for SmartBots. I'm sure that working together will lead to a new interesting products. As a major shareholder of SmartBots, I would like to announce that I shall provide 250,000 BOTS shares to Casper Trebuchet, CEO of Lemur Investments, taken solely from my personal shares. As a CEO of SmartBots I guarantee that this alliance will lead to the further development of SmartBots services, positively affecting the business profit and its shareholders revenues. Best regards, Glaznah Gassner SmartBots CEO |
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| Nov 4th 2011, 13:17 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » I'm curious... Re: I'm curious... |
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| Hello Steve! Sorry for delay: was busy preparing financial documents for today's dividends payout. And this is also a reply to your question :] |
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| Nov 4th 2011, 13:31 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » Financial Reports - for CEO Posting Only Re: Financial Report for October 2011 |
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| This is a very first financial report of BOTS. We are proud to present the growing income and net profit. REVENUES: L$365,493 EXPENSES: L$170,514 NET PROFIT: L$194,979 % to dividends: 40% Total dividends: L$77,992 The detailed financial report is available here: http://goo.gl/D3y5l |
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| Nov 4th 2011, 14:40 Glaznah Gassner |
Earn2Life.com » Financial Reports - for CEO Posting Only Re: Financial Reports for October 2011 |
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| REVENUES: + Earn2Life.com Services: L$647,880 * + Lindens4Free Offers: L$206,000 ** + Dragons&Princesses: L$44,964 Total revenue: L$898,844 EXPENSES: - Earn2Life.com Payments: L$314,033 - Lindens4Free Payments: L$102,538 - Dragons&Princesses: L$24,141 - Infrastructure: L$49,913 *** - Staff salaries: L$50 000 **** Total expenses: L$540,625 NET PROFIT: L$358,219 To dividends: 70% --------------------------------------- TOTAL DIVIDENDS: L$250,753 * Earn2Life.com services include all services available for Earn2Life.com members: Pay4Visit, Pay4Picks, Pay4Surf and any other available at http://www.earn2life.com ** Lindens4Free services include any services available at http://www.lindens4free.com *** The infrastructure expenses includes: in-world sim payments, web servers payments, misc. payments (domains, payment fees etc). This item is the part of the infrastructure expenses which is being paid from Earn2Life.com budget. **** Salaries item includes the salaries of the staff involved into Earn2Life.com projects: programmers (web and LSL), support managers, sales managers etc. == NOTES == As you may see, we've added "Dragons & Princesses" game to the balance sheet. The game is rather new, and it does not show the noticeable performance yet. However, it brings the income already: L$20,823 in October. The new projects require promotion - the promotion needs the additional expenses, like advertisement and bonuses for users. I'm experimenting and trying different approaches to D&P promotion. Thus, I've decided to not involve EARN balance to these experiments and pay from my own sources, so you see the clear program output. The most serious change in the sheet compared to the previous month is Lindens4Free income. One of our advertising networks shown unexpectedly low performance last month (I suppose that this happened due to unstable world's financial situation). We shall switch to another network within few days and work to raise the values back. We also shall continue developing and promoting Dragons&Princesses in November. This is a very promising project: I'm very proud to say that players call it "socializing" and "captivating". That's what I was trying to archive: the communication, game and fun instead of a boring camping! |
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| Nov 6th 2011, 07:29 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: BOTS shareholders meeting in less than 3 hours News Story: BOTS shareholders meeting in less than 3 hours |
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| The first BOTS shareholders meeting will be held today at SLCAPEX office, at 10:00AM. Everyone is welcome! |
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| Nov 6th 2011, 13:07 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: BOTS Shareholders' meeting, November 07th 2011 News Story: BOTS Shareholders' meeting, November 06th 2011 Edited by moderator Nov 6th 2011, 13:29 |
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| We had a first BOTS shareholders meeting today. I'm very pleased to say that we had a very practical and well-organized meeting! Thank you for coming, it was a pleasure to reply all your questions! = MEETING RECORD, SHORTENED FOR READABILITY = Dear friends: BOTS shareholders and guests! It's very nice to see you there. I'm very proud to present SmartBots at SLCAPEX. One of SLCAPEX users recently said that SmartBots is unique, and have no comparable competitors… I can confirm that: we have a lot of unique features, and adding more every month. Let me introduce the schedule of our meeting, I'll try to keep it short: (1) Few words about SmartBots; (2) Presentation of our new device and service; (3) Our future plans and updates; (4) Your questions. == SMARTBOTS HISTORY == Let's start with some historical information. SmartBots has been launched in January 2010 - almost two years ago. At the very beginning, it was a simple direct group inviter service. The reason was that the tool to manage my own group was needed (Earn2Life group with 8K members). The existing direct inviters (including JVA bot I was using at the very beginning) were unreliable (JVA was spamming people from nearby parcel, and another service was annoying, inviting same people over and over). Thus, I've decided to have my own group management service. Unlike competitors, I've decided to set the lower prices (L$79 per week + bonuses), and compete by attracting the larger number of customers. This model has succeeded: we were gathering more and more customers, offering the lowest rates. At the same time we were adding new services, devices and plugins. We had about 500 active customers after the first year, and more than 1000 at the moment. Currently we have 3 services available: group inviter, group chat management and group notices services. We allow customers to use our bots ("shared bot") or their own "personal" bot to manage the groups. == THE PRESENTATION OF A NEW SERVICE == The possibilities provided by Second Life bots are truly amazing. Invitations, scheduled notices and automatic IM autoreply greeter - that's what you can do with SmartBots. Actually, not SmartBots but SL accounts powered by SmartBots! The can be demonstrated by our new device, just created and powered by SmartBots: the group chat automatic translator. You may know the local chat "Universal translator" - it automatically translates the local chat. SmartBots Group Translator does the similar work within a group chat: it listens to the chat, translates the messages and says the translation to required language.The most interesting fact is that SmartBots Translator is based on open SmartBots API: every developer can write the similar or better tools using our functions. We have tested in in two multi-language groups: Earn2Life (20K+ members) and Dragons&Princesses (about 300 members but very active chat). I have to say that it's very useful for group members, since noone argue anymore that they can't understand the other people's language. Carter Allegrant: How accurate are the translations? Glaznah Gassner: We use two translation engines: Google and Microsoft, and trying to use their best sides. Of course, they may fail to determine the language sometimes, especially unusual languages like Latin. == PLANS AND FUTURE UPDATES == (1) The very first feature to be published next week is a Talk-Through-Bot ability (demanded a lot). For example, iIf you have a personal bot in your office, and someone talks with the bot, you get a notification. You can reply to the visitor by typing a message, and bot will say that. Thus, you can put a secretary bot in your office and reply to the customers even if you are far away (or even logged off: the live chat is web-based). We already have a special HUD to manage personal bots: this HUD will also display when you get a new message from a visitor. (2) Another heavy-demanded innovation is SBSL: Simple Bot Scripting Language. This language allows owner to program his bot to react on specific actions: messages, inventory etc. Roleplaying sim owners asked for such simple language to make NPCs (non-player characters) who give inventory to the players, and chat with them. Such scripted bots can be widely used in any environment: we are going to use them in Dragons&Princesses game, one of them is already flying over the castle in game's parcel. The bot's reaction programmed by SBSL may vary: the auto-reply, the inventory delivery in return; or something more complex. The draft version of SBSL is already published. The fully-working version is planned to be released in November. (3) Along with SBSL, we plan to publish all specifications of SmartBots' HTTP API. This API allows to do almost everything with your group and bot: send group messages, move and teleport your personal bot etc. We use this API in our devices, and now preparing the documentation and securing the calls, so every developer can use them. (4) Actually, working with developers is our priority. We've already provided developers with AdminBot - the LSL library which allows managing the group from LSL script (including listening to a group chat). To support our developers, we announce the contest for developers. It is timed to SmartBots 2nd Anniversary in January 2012. The prize fund is planned at L$80,000 in three categories: the most innovative device, the most well-made and most useful device. The goal of this contest is to create more powerful devices, and attract more customers and users of SmartBots. (5) As a continuation of this work, and to encourage the developers' activity, we plan to open a Bot Market. Scripters will be able to sell their bot- and group-related devices there, and users will get access to a lot of amazing new abilities. We already have about 10 devices developed by us, and 10-20 developed by other people. Selling them at one place leads to benefit for both developer, customer and SmartBots. That's what I've planned for today. There's much more to say: I can tell the SmartBots history for a long time, or describe the new features we plan to introduce for hours! Steve Ellsmere: Thanks Glaz, looks like you got another winner, I'm glad I jumped on this one early :) Glaznah Gassner: Nice to hear :] It is already winning company, and we will make it even better! == SOME QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE MEETING == Steve Ellsmere: With creating so many bots for your customers do you forsee any issues with Linden Labs? Do they have any limitations on the number of bots you can create? Glaznah Gassner: No. We force all bots to have a "Scripted agent" option turned on. This resolves all possible issues. We had some contacts with LL about year ago, and I've explained why do we own about 100 alts. Syn Enyo: Can we creare our own AI with the HTTP API? Like kinda likea Siri? Remind me in a half hour to call bob. Like have a php script get that and send a reply? Then later have that php script send a im? Glaznah Gassner: Yes, you can create your own AI using our APIs. And SBSL allows to reply to a local chat messages. SBSL can forward all messages to your php script. You process it and give the answer back. |
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| Nov 11th 2011, 10:35 Glaznah Gassner |
SmartBots » News Story: BOTS launch the new service: automatic group chat translator News Story: BOTS launch the new service: automatic group chat translator |
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| We've launched the new service of SmartBots today: the automatic group chat translator! The new service provides a bot which translates all messages in your group chat (you specify the desired language). When a new message comes in a language different from required bot automatically translates the sentence. We've tested the new tool with our groups and it works amazing: this is a very useful tool for multi-language groups. It's funny too. The description of the new service and setup instructions are available here: http://www.smartbots2life.com/docs/Chat_Translator_Service == Upcoming Updates == We are preparing to roll two big updates soon: - the talk-through-bot chat - model bots. === 1. Talk-through-bots === This is a very demanded feature which allows to talk through your bot sitting in your office. Bot acts as a support manager this way, and visitors chat with a bot directly, receiving your replies. This feature is ready to deploy, we are going to publish it within few days. === 2. Model bots === A lot of people are using bots to decorate their locations. They don't need additional features like automatic notices, autoreply AI etc. We are launching the solution to provide such bots: personal Model Bots. They will be much cheaper than Standard Bots (L$179 per week vs L$479) and can be used to make your location alive and attractive. The Model Bots are planned to be released next week. == BOTS Performance == Listing with SLCapex gave a real boost to SmartBots: take a look at "SmartBots Usage Statistics" graph here: http://www.mysmartbots.com/ As you may see, our activity is constantly growing: currently we are serving more than 1000 customers, and numbers are increasing every day. |
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