This is a very rough and indefinite classification of twitter bots by their content. It is by no means exhaustive and many of the bots overlap different classifications. The focus will be on the creative and generative possibilities of twitter bots rather than simulating human conversation or automating tasks.
Firstly, What are twitter bots? Well a bot is software designed to autonomously perform a certain task. For twitter bots, those tasks would the things you and I do on twitter. So, things like looking to see who is following us, tweeting, retweeting, liking, subtweeting. Twitter bots would be able to do all or some of that but without a human involved in every stage of the process.
Bots that make versions of memes.
Train a markov chain algorithm on text and tweet the generations.
- Captain Markov Bot
- King James Blockchain Bot (king james bible + blockchain papers)
- Two Headlines
- Portmanteau Bot - (mashes two words)
"A protest bot is a bot so specific you can’t mistake it for bullshit." It's topical, might reveal something that was hidden, oppositional (have a stance), data-based (don't make shit up)
Read more here: What is a protest bot?
If you like this, check out:
- Botwiki, an encyclopedia of bots (all kinds, not just twitter, slack bots, chat bots), resources on how to make bots and lots of other great content.
- Botwiki’s bot starter projects on Glitch.
- Make creative bots without code: https://cheapbotsdonequick.com
- Generating text with tracery
- Allison Parrish
- Nora Reed
- Galaxy Kate
- Another twitter bot taxonomy that focuses on classifying by patterns of behaviour and not content by Tully Hansen.