Very quietly.

Many didn’t even hear of bots. No one ever met one.

But don’t be fooled. They are here. And they’re going to take over the world.

A bot, to put things into order, is a small “robot” software, designed to interact in a human like manner. One of the more common uses of bots is in IRC and IM (Chat rooms and Instant Massage software). It’s supposed to give us some service, on a conversation-like interface.

It’s been among us for many years. We heard them reporting the weather, giving zip codes, sport scores, converting currency and unites or just “talking” to us to pass the time. No one really paid attention. We knew they’re out there and didn’t care.

But now, there are signs an invasion is imminent.

On December 3rd, a Microsoft-made Christmas-bot got out of control and started sexually harassing the young and inocent. Kids asking questions about pizza, where pulled into conversation about oral sex. This was only the beginning.

Four days later, on December 7th, another bot surfaced. This time – on the other side of the globe. again – suffering from some sexual issues, but this time, it was also harmful. Russian chat room visitors found themselves involved in romantic conversations with CyberLover, ending up trying to pick pocket their identitys. Body invasion in a cyber era?

A week and a half later, again on the other side of the world, Google announced a translation bot. Simple as it may sound – you write the bot something in your language and it replays the translation – this, as Google states, is only the beginning:

For those of you into programming, why not build your own bot? Maybe a weather service or a rock/paper/scissors game. The Google Talk service uses an open protocol called XMPP, and it’s easy to find client libraries and code samples that will give you a flying start…

Bots now have a way of breeding.

I will not be the least surprised to see companies building bot-warehouses, where users can build they’re own bots, like Widget creation platforms, for appliances like shopping assistance, fashion recommendations, vertical news updates, directions assistance and so on. Give me an API (Google maps, Google news, Twitter and a zillion others), a bot platform and I’ll give you talking companions for everything.

You’ll be able to recognize me with ease now. I’m the one wearing the tin-foil hat.

Invasion log, supplemental: January 6th. “They” now know where we are and tell us where to go.

It’s a lost war.

And one where a lot of money is waisted. For nothing.

There’s a big difference between today’s war of formats and the VHS vs. Beta at the early 80s’. At the old days, the winner (ending an almost 10 year’ battle) gained a market share for a decade. A lot of money was spent but more was gained. Blu-Ray and HD DVD are more like Mini-Disks. Who remembers them? No one. It was a format arriving too late. MP3 killed it young. Same with Laser Disks and DVDs.

Streaming media will be the killer of the physical formats for consuming video (and any other “high volume” media, such as video games). As MP3 did (and still doing) to CDs, Streaming media will do to DVD and HD Video.

That’s why:

1. Actually, there’s only one reason why streaming is not here yet. Broadband. If we all had Fiber To The Home (FTTH) no one would have gone to the movie store. Supporting devices would have poped up, and we would all consumed streaming media. FTTH is expensive. So it might take a little while until every home enjoys it, but DSL, over existing infrastructure, is gaining bandwidth and might remove this barrier sooner.
2. Storage. With Hard Disks becoming cheaper and cheaper, and Tera-Bytes not an imaginary storage space in personal desktops, storing movie librarys of 30GB per-movie (in HD) is no problem.
3. Sharing of content across platforms. 4G in mobile is getting closer. With DRM-Free media becoming a reality, sharing personal media libraries across platforms (3 and 4 gen. iPhones and other “combined” PMPs will show up in a growing rate in the following months and years) is becoming something everybody wants and will be able to do. It’s easier if your media is in the right format for sharing in the first place.
4. Media centers going main stream. After years of trying to convince the market to bring the computer into the living room, it seems Bill Gates is finally doing something right. Maybe the little help from Apple, AKA Apple TV, didn’t hurt the effort. Having HD in the living room makes it easier to consume and store a software-based media library . I’ll venture a not-so-risky bet, and say Tivo will be a player in this field very soon as well.
5. Streaming rental services. Like Netflix and Blockbuster (understanding it’s a join-or-close-the-business) and of course “On-Demand” video which is already here, makes it easier to consume.
6. HD in YouTube. Will soon arrive. True, it’s still expensive to broadcast HD, but smaller services are managing (to name one – Vimeo), and with all the money in the bank, HD on YouTube will probably be introduced in 2008. This too will make consumers more comfortable with consuming software-based media.
7. Soft-copy sale points. iTunes selling video over the internet (CrunchGrear over took me by hours to the subject of this post , Amazon joining in soon and other vendors will make building your own movie library easy and not so much of a revolution. We’re used to consuming music this way for years.

So what’s my bet? Not yet in 2008 (I make joke!).

But 2009′s end-of-year lists will include the funerals of the Blu-Ray and HD DVDs. Hope they’re going to church every Sunday….