Thank you to everyone who applied to this years App Idea Awards. After a long three weeks of judging, our semi-finalist judges decided on these six finalists below. We can assure you that it was not an easy decision for them to make. We received a ton of applications this year - so if you weren't selected as a finalist, don't let that deter you one bit. Keep at it...and apply to next year's App Idea Awards!

The 2017 App Idea Awards finalists are:

1. Bee Bee is a platform that crowdsources content creation and distribution to a company's best customers. Team: Andrew Ullmann, Lucas McGartland, Erik Byargeon, and Lukas Huberman Location: Los Angeles, CA 2. Biem Biem allows individuals to talk with a healthcare doctor, get tested for STDs, and show partners verified results from the comfort of their own home. Team: Bryan Stacy, Natalie Brito, and John Rimmer Location: New York, NY 3. Floss Bar Floss Bar offers affordable luxury dental hygiene on your time. Team: Eva Sadej and Lewis Chen Location: Brooklyn, NY 4. Hazel Hazel is a smart-home system that subtly monitors your loved ones with dementia to reduce the tension that arises between patients and their caregivers. Team: Jonathan Chung, Lillian Jia, and Weijia Zhang Location: Toronto, ON 5. SWIFTE SWIFTE is a carpool platform that matches drivers who have extra space with riders who want to go to the same destination. Team: Justine Avoudikpon, Sofia DeMay, and Kenneth Duncan Location: Riverdale, GA 6. Validated Validated enables retailers and restaurants to cover the transportation costs of customers who shop or dine with them. Team: Tov Arneson, Alex Wilhelm, Alanna Beckman, Ian Lyman, and Stein Willanger Location: Portland, OR

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be announcing some of the other apps that graded high (including our runner-up, gold medalists, and silver medalists.) Keep an eye out for those! Our finals event is on June 7th at General Assembly (Manhattan HQ) and is open to everyone and anyone! We would love for you to all attend and watch these six companies battle it out for the grand prize. Make sure to RSVP now!

So you've finished developing your app, now what? Watch the video above for a step-by-step process of how to successfully get your app on the Apple App Store and into the hands of users. 

It may seem as though chatbots came out of nowhere - but really, they’ve been around for quite some time. Here is our history of chatbots (and all things AI) from 1950 to today...and then some.

1950: Turing Test

Alan Turing publishes Computing Machinery and Intelligence, introducing the concept of the Turing Test which tests a machines ability to exhibit behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.

1956: Dartmouth Conferences

The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence is held, establishing AI as a field of study. Organized by Assistant Professor of Mathematics John McCarthy, the conferences lasted approximately 6 to 8 weeks.

1966: ELIZA

ELIZA, an early natural language processing computer program that simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist, is created at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. It is said to be one of the first programs able to pass the Turing Test.

1972: PARRY

PARRY, a chatbot created to simulate a person with paranoid schizophrenia, was created in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby. In the same year, PARRY and ELIZA “met” and “talked” to each other at the International Conference on Computer Communications in Washington D.C.

1980: Chinese Room

The Chinese Room argument is introduced in philosopher John Searle’s paper “Minds, Brains and Programs” published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences scientific journal. The argument poses a hypothetical scenario which implies that a computer has no consciousness, no matter how human-like it may behave.

1983: Racter

Racter (short for Raconteur), an AI computer program written by William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter, is revealed in a book called The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed. Racer is said to have to have authored the book, entirely.

1997: Jabberwacky

Jabberwacky is created by British programmer Rollo Carpenter as one of the earliest forms of human conversation based AI. Built mainly as a form of entertainment, Carpenter also intended it be capable of passing the Turing Test.

1992: Dr. Sbaitso

Dr. Sbaitso, an AI speech synthesis program for MS DOS-based PCs is released. Although the program attempted to resemble a real-life psychologist, the use of a digitized voice and its repetitive responses made it feel otherwise.

1995: A.L.I.C.E

Artifical Linguistic Internet Computer Entity, or A.L.I.C.E for short, comes to life. Heavily inspired by ELIZA, the natural language processing boy had the ability to engage in a conversation with a humans by applying heuristic pattern matching rules to the human’s input.

2001: HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey)

The year in which HAL 9000, a calm-voiced sentient computer that controls the Discovery One spaceship in the 1968 science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey, decides to go haywire. “Im sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that” may ring an unnerving bell. 

2001: SmarterChild

SmarterChild, the intelligent bot developed by ActiveBuddy, Inc. is released across popular instant messaging and SMS platforms. The robot sat on the AIM buddy list of millions of kids and adults across the globe until the technology was shelved following an acquisition of the company by Microsoft.

2001: GooglyMinotaur

GoogleMinotaur, an AOL Instant Messenger bot, was developed by ActiveBuddy to promote Radiohead’s fifth album, Amnesiac. It’s release marks one of the first instances of bots used for commercial means. After conversing with nearly one million people about Radiohead related content, the bot was switched off. The cause of death is undetermined.

2006: IBM’s Watson

IBM’s supercomputer Watson, named after the company’s first CEO, is developed with the ability to answer questions posed in natural language. In 2011, the computer competed on the game show Jeopardy beating former winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. To this day, Watson powers countless business across different industries.

2010: Siri

Siri, Apple’s intelligent personal voice assistant, is  developed by Siri Inc and released as a standalone application. After being acquired by Apple that year, the program was integrated into iOS, with the ability to interact with a number of Apple’s default applications. Today, Siri can be used across apps within Apple’s iOS, watchOS, tvOS and macOS.

2012: Google Now

Google now, Google’s own intelligent personal assistant is released for Android. Using a natural language user interface, the bot can answer questions, make recommendations and perform actions across various web services. In 2016, an evolved version of Google Now which hosts the ability to engage in a two-way dialogue, called Google Assistant, was announced.

2015: Amazon’s Alexa

Amazon releases their own intelligent personal assistant, Alexa, which is capable of performing countless tasks through voice interaction. Alexa is the operating system found within the Amazon Echo smart speaker, which acts as a home automation hub by controlling numerous smart devices.

2015: Microsoft’s Cortana

As a nod to the fictional AI hologram character in the Halo video game series, Microsoft releases their own intelligent personal assistant, Cortana. Available in numerous languages, Cortana serves as a key ingredient of Microsoft’s operating systems “makeover.”

2016: Tay

Microsoft releases an intelligent chatbot, named Tay, on Twitter under the handle @TayandYou. Designed to mimic the language patterns of a nineteen year old female and learn from interacting with Twitter users, Tay soon became known as “The AI with zero chill” as she began to exhibit offensive behavior. It was taken down only 16 hours after its launch.  

2016: “Year of Conversational Commerce”

Uber developer experience lead, and inventor of the hashtag, Chris Messina calls 2016 the year of “Conversational Commerce” as brands and services will begin to use messaging/natural language interfaces, through chatbots, to interact with customers. Countless publications referred to this as the “Chatbot Revolution.”

2016: Betaworks Botcamp

- Betaworks announces a 90-day pre-seed program for chat bot startups. Ten companies are accepted, each receiving $200k, and are given an office to work out of at the Betaworks Studio space in NYC.

2016: Bots, Bots, Bots…

- Bots are everywhere. Facebook announces a platform for building bots for Messenger, and tens of thousands of them are created within months. Other messaging services,like Slack, Telegram and Kik did the same. Later on in the year, Apple opens up iMessage to third-party developers. Bots have officially arrived.

2019: Replicants (Blade Runner)

Blade Runner (based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) takes place in dystopian Los Angeles, when the world is filled with illegal sentient robots, known as replicants. The 1982 film opens up with an interrogation scene in which a replicant is being administered a test designed to distinguish them from their human counterparts.

~2020: Ava (Ex Machina)

Based in the near future, though no date is explicitly given, the 2015 film Ex Machina presents the story of a programmer who is invited by his mad scientist CEO to his extremely isolated home to conduct a Turing Test with an intelligent, female humanoid named Ava.

~2025: Samantha (Her)

Set slightly in the future in Los Angeles, the 2013 film Her, tells the story of one man’s relationship with an AI operating system, named Samantha, as she evolves from a personal assistant to something (or someone) much greater.

~2030/45: The Singularity

Last evening (April 4th), we demoed InstaBot to a crowd of 500+ at NY Tech Meetup at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. We were joined on stage by some great startups with some incredible tech (including Addicaid, Bareo, Ense, JustReachOut, Parsec and GibberIt.)

As part of the App Idea Awards, we make it our goal to create educational content relating to app based businesses. If you were around for the competition last year, you probably remember our videos. Here is our first piece of educational content for the 2017 App Idea Awards. If you're building an app, you should definitely know what SDKs are and how they can help you speed up the app development process and save some of your precious funds.  

On March 1st, we officially launched the 2017 App Idea Awards at General Assembly. As part of the launch festivities, we held a panel discussion on the state of early stage of investing hosted by our own Co-Founder and President, Amy Kadomatsu. Our panel included:

Jason E. Klein: Founder & CEO, On Grid Ventures

Adam Quinton: Founder & CEO, Lucas Point Ventures

Alicia Syrett: Founder & CEO, Pantegrion Capital

Zosia Ulatowski: Principal, Cornerstone Ventures

Jason Eiswerth: Managing Director, Nima Capital

In front of a room filled (literally!) with entrepreneurs, investors and tech enthusiasts, our panel discussed a wide range of topics —from investor pet peeves to what makes a perfect pitch. In case you missed out, here is an excerpt of the discussion that took place.

Amy: What are your go to questions when an entrepreneur comes to you?

Adam Quinton: A professor at UT Austin, Robert Metcalfe, who discovered Ethernet, always asked the people who were pitching their businesses, “can you tell me why you’re doing this?” It’s a very powerful statement about your passion and energy which is very interesting from an investor’s point of view. It tells you very quickly where the people are coming from in terms of their background, how much they believe in the product, how committed they are, and it allows you to quickly screen out people who aren’t fully committed and who don’t fully know what they’re talking about.

Alicia: First, sales and marketing questions. A lot of start-ups don’t really think through the marketing of their product. They need to be thoughtful of how they’re gaining customers. It’s more than just hiring sales people and doing social media outreach, but partnerships and distribution and understanding the traction of the business. I really dig into the sales and marketing plan, why somebody else can’t replicate what you’re doing, and ask what are the real tractions in the business.

Jason K: It’s not really one question, but I’m really interested in your understanding as an entrepreneur of the competitive set. It’s a question that probably 80% of entrepreneurs just flop because they don’t really understand it at all. Are there any other venture backed companies out there that are doing the same thing that you’re doing? Are you really the first to market? Building a company isn’t just about a product. It’s also about the company and the market. So that’s one thing that I really look for: a good understanding of the competitive set and a realistic view of where you stack up.

Amy: What are some thoughtful questions that entrepreneurs have asked you?

Jason E: A question that I was asked recently was, “if you were in my situation, with these resources going in this direction, what are the things that you would do to take maximum advantage of that opportunity?” If you’re younger or newer to starting a business and you’re sitting across the table from someone who’s done it before, don’t miss the opportunity to get information for free while you’re there. You may not get the investment, but that information you get may help you evolve your thinking and refine your pitch so that you are better prepared in the future.

Zosia: I ask the question, “do you have any questions for us?” It’s so surprising how many entrepreneurs don’t ask questions, don’t ask for feedback, or don’t try to take in more about the personality of the fund or of the investor or who they’re going to be working with. You’re getting into a very long term thing, so getting to know the people on the other side of the table is very important.

Amy: What are some of your biggest pet peeves when people step through your door to meet with you?

Adam: One thing that I see a lot at pitch competitions and when entrepreneurs are pitching to investors, is that they’ll only talk about their product. When you’re pitching to an investor, you’re not pitching your company, your product, or your service; what you’re pitching is the opportunity for me to invest in your company and share in the future value of your company. So the pet peeve more specifically is: you come in and you spend 10 minutes telling me what your product is and how wonderful it is and you don’t do all of the other stuff around market size, opportunity, competitive set, etc.

Alicia: One of the pet peeves that angels always say is when entrepreneurs tell us that there is no competition. There’s always competition. Another big one is when someone just does a back-of-the-envelope estimate of market size. You want to estimate the market size from the bottom up. Another thing is when people are too sales-y, like when someone comes in pitching to the NY Angels and will say something like, “the ground is almost full if you don’t get in now” or “we promise five times return” because that’s usually a huge red flag.

Jason E: Think about what you’re actually doing. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re self-consumed with whatever it is that you’re trying to pitch. That’s usually the only lens through which you’re looking at the world. If you take a step back, do a little homework, and research a bit about who you’re pitching to, learn to understand the person, the company, what their drivers are, what other companies they’ve invested in, why they invested in them, which ones worked, which ones didn’t. People are too focused on their own idea that they forget to put in context of everything else.

Amy: Are there specific metrics that you’re looking for particularly at the early stage? What are some of those tangible metrics?

Alicia: We really look for traction. That’s probably a priority for us. There doesn’t have to be paying customers but we want to see that you’re talking to customers, you’re getting feedback on your product, your customers are touching and feeling your product and giving you suggestions on how to make it better. We also look at the founding team. We want to see balance across the founders.

Jason E:  A really good sales plan. There are so many great ideas out there but a lot of them fall down when sales is not well thought through. Be ahead on sales. Who are you selling to? What’s different? What problem that you’re solving? Really articulate that in a very granular way. Make sure to have spoken to people who know more about sales than you do so that you can get their ideas.

Amy: So I’m going to move on to the state of the app market since it is the App Idea Awards. So the big question is, are apps dead? Is the app market dead? What’s your take? 

Alicia: I know it sounds a little dramatic to say that they’re dead, but there’s definitely been a mass amount of consolidation in the market and most of the studies that I read say that at the end of the day, people focus on only four or five different apps. And so the question is, is what you’re building crucial to the user? Is it something that they’ll rely on, that they’ll use everyday?

Jason K: I think the notion that you have to basically come up with a great app, a consumer app, and put it in the app store and get people to download it and be successful almost doesn’t really happen. No matter how good it is, you’ve got to have some way to get that app into people’s hands which means you have to think outside of the app store. You have to think about marketing partners, you have to think about ways to force downloads, you have to think about it as an integrated business and not just as an app. And so, frankly, I won’t even look at business plans for an app without an equally strong plan about how to get people to download it, use it the first time, and repeat using it — which are enormous challenges.

Amy: Last year, there was a lot of talk about the arrival of chatbots, To many, this signaled the end of apps. Are you on team chatbot or team app?

Zosia: I think we’re in the middle. I don’t think apps are bad. I think chatbots are a great way to make the user experience more easy and natural and can be the bridge between the user and the app. So it doesn’t have to be in silo. It can be a part of the business model. That been said, we have been looking for a chatbox investment. We haven’t found one.

Amy: What’s the one that got away? What’s the investment that you could’ve invested in, but you didn’t?

Jason K: So I was at Best Buy last weekend and there was a big display for Canary in the home security section, which is a self contained little box that’s a home security system. And my recollection is that I think we saw that at NY Angels right after I had joined and I was just really getting into all of this. And it was just too early and too different and too risky.

Adam: I was thinking really hard about this because there are so many. For active investors, you’ll see hundreds of companies for every one that you invest in. So there’s actually a lot that got away. Personally I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. I just keep looking for the new ones that come through the door.

After the panel discussion ended, a crowd of curious entrepreneurs formed around the front of the room. All five of our panelists were kind enough to stay around for an hour or so (some even longer) and speak face to face with our attendees, answering any pressing questions that they had. As this occurred other attendees enjoyed drinks and appetizers and spoke to us (the competition organizers), and each other, about their ideas and the competition as a whole. Thank you to everyone who helped us put the event together, and to everyone who joined us. We look forward to seeing you at the next event - the finals on June 7th! 

The competition has officially launched! Make sure to get your applications in. 

This week, we had two articles written by our Founder and CEO, Dmitry Rakovitsky published. As you might know, we’re very pro-bot over here at ROKO Labs (check out InstaBot if you haven’t already!) It comes as to no surprise that the two articles published this week were about chatbots. We’re all in on bots, and you should be too.

The first of the two, titled “6 Things You Didn’t Know a Bot Can Do” was published by the popular Medium blog, Chatbots Magazine. The blog, which calls itself “The #1 Place to Learn About Chatbots,” really is just that. On any given day, the blog will publish a new article on a wide array of bot-related topics, from AI to NLP, from Facebook Messenger to Slack, to its 19,000+ followers.

In “6 Things You Didn’t Know a Bot Can Do,” we cover six different bots that perform different, extremely useful actions. In 2016, bots arrived on the scene in full force. However, the fervor seemed to only be felt by those within the tech community. Naturally, with any new technology, it takes time for it to become widely used. The same is the case with bots. With this article, we hope to tech the average joe about how bots (or a bot, specifically) can make their life a whole lot easier.

The second article, titled “4 lessons you can learn from these celebrity chatbots” was published by VentureBeat. As a top tech blog, VentureBeat really needs no introduction. This article has a very similar purpose to the one published prior, however, it’s more targeted in its efforts. Here, our goal is to teach marketers how chatbots, specifically ‘celebrity’ bots, can be used as marketing tools. Each of our four chosen bots employs a unique marketing tactic in order to self-promote and build brand awareness. It’s key for marketers to stay on top of of trends in order to ensure that their brand stays relevant. With that, they must always search for new avenues to, like chatbots, to get the word out.