My Favorite Google Wave Bots (So Far)

Update: Check out my new book, The Complete Guide to Google Wave, for everything I know about Wave. The most updated list of my favorite bots is in Chapter 8: Wave Bots.

A “bot” is one of two ways to add functionality to Google Wave. A bot is a contact you add to a wave, and it has the ability to automatically edit your wave or add to it. A bot examines the content of a wave, and updates/adds to it based on how it’s programmed.

To use a bot, add its email address to your contacts list. Create a new wave, then add the bot to it to try it out.

Useful Bots

Polly the Pollster (polly-wave@appspot.com): Creates and distributes multiple choice poll questions.

Yelpful (yelpful@appspot.com): Adds an in-wave interface to Yelp.com

RSSyBot (rssybot@appspot.com): Adds an RSS feed to Wave.

TwitUsernames (twitusernames@appspot.com): Links @usernames to Twitter.com.

Blog bot (blog-bot@appspot.com): Publishes waves to blog posts.

Aesthetic Bots

Emoticony (emoticonbot@appspot.com): Turns smiley faces into images.

Sweepy (sweepy-wave@appspot.com): Removes empty blips.

Silly Bots

Eliza the Robot Shrink (elizarobot@appspot.com): Talks to you when no one else will.

Swedish Chef (borkforceone@appspot.com): Bork bork bork!

Flippy (flippy-wave@appspot.com): Flips text upside down.

What are your favorite bots? Wave about ’em below.

To see the embedded wave below, you’ve got to be logged into Google Wave. If you didn’t get an invite, fret not! Google is working on making embedded waves accessible to everyone. (They just aren’t right now.)