Just recently cleatrip announced its chatbot based search feature and now Naukri has joined the fray with its own chat bot for jobs. Now people looking for jobs can chat their way to a new job opening by adding Naukri.com’s ‘NaukriOnChat’ to the Gtalk chat ids. This can be done by adding jobs@chat.naukri.com as a friend in your Gtalk list of friends. Then after typing ‘help’ to get instructions, just follow them to get going on your search for new job opportunities.
Check the screeshot below for example
(click to enlarge)
Whats the limitation?
Unlike Cleartrips case where you dont need to be a registered user to buy a ticket in Naukri users can both search and apply on Naukri but if they are not registered on Naukri with a Gmail id they can only search for jobs and view job descriptions, but can’t apply.
Is there an opportunity for an horizontal chatbot?
The very fact that we companies like cleartrip and naukri have launched a gtalk based chat bot feature its a sign that chat is where a lot of the current users spend their time. This throws up the opportunity for a chat based search product which is horizontal in nature i.e. you can search jobs, matrimony, travel etc all through a chat bot and book it as well whenever possible.Additionally news, search and various other funtions can be performed through chat.
Why it may work?
When it comes to technology convenience is the mother of innovation. A chatbot that allows me not to open a new tab or browser window till a point where Ive found what I wanted to find can be of real value.
Who could launch such a product?
This product can easily be launched by one of the horizontal players like Rediff or In.com and even google. The question is will they launch and pursue it seriously. Because given the time spent by users on chat clients this could very well redefine the way people search. But again its necessary to execute it well and keep chat instructions simpler than what they are for products like naukri above.
Whats your take? Will something like this work?
Askme.im has a number of useful chat bots. There are chat bots for cricket scores, foreign exchange conversions, stock prices etc. Get them on the website.