Ask HN : Is it time for a clippy clone?

[gritlin]

It is not unusual for a web or mobile app to run into a crash or a bug.

Even when they are working right, users sometime struggle in using those software.

Is it time to bring back a new and improved version of MS Clippy?

Our plan is to make it easier for product managers and business people to light up functionalities in Clippy using a low code editor with out needing the help of a programmer.

They can get analytics on what users are doing and issues they are encountering, and then set up Clippy to respond appropriately.

If you think it is useful, can you post a brief description of your app and how clippy can be useful to you? If you wish me to reach out to you directly please put that in comment too.

Thanks and appreciate the help!

[smoldesu]

There have been attempts at this in the past (https://bonzibuddy.org/download.html) but they aren't remembered fondly by history...

[gritlin]

Thanks. I am thinking of something that is tailored to a given software.

[muchosandwich]

Isn't this what Cortana is supposed to do in Windows?

[gritlin]

Yes. But cortana is specific to windows (at least they never commercialized it to a point where it could work for any software but in theory they could have done that).

What we are trying to do is to build a solution that will work for any applications.

[muchosandwich]

Cortana has an API that can be addressed by any application, it just sucks.

[gritlin]

I should be careful when I say it will work for any application.

It will need domain specific customization, our goal is to create a low code platform so product managers and business people can perform these customizations.

[PaulHoule]

Clippy is still around? Is this just for Windows?

[gritlin]

Sorry I meant our company is planning to build something like Clippy, used it in the title so people can understand the idea quickly.

Thanks!

[PaulHoule]

I gave a talk in December 2016 titled “Chatbots in 2017” which was well received but was hardly prescient. We are hearing now that AMZN is not happy with Alexa as a business even though I think many people like it.

So we’re left with the feeling that the chatbot UI is not successful and people are waking up to GPT-3 as not the path to Skynet but something that spits out BS while following the form of a certain literature.

I really want to see something better but we seem stuck. I have to admit I liked Clippy but that was because it had a well tuned search engine and good documentation behind it which is not usually the case for online help. It could be the theming and characterization turned people off to a very good help facility as it turned them on.