Zimbie.com - Make IM Work for You

The cutely named Zimbie is a site which employs Zimbots to keep you up to date and informed. A Zimbot is essentially a bot buddy who resides in your IM contact list. There are Zimbots for RSS alerts, there are Zimbots for social networks, and there are Zimbots for marketing. Users can even create their own Zimbots. Publishers can use Zimbots to alert their subscribers to new content. Advertisers can use Zimbots to communicate with consumers live, during special events such as auctions. There’s even a Zimbot in the works which will allow you to communicate with your friends in any language. To use the Zimbots, you’ll need to download the free Zimbie client.

“Zimbots are Instant Messaging services that appear as buddies on your contacts list. IMpReSS (RSS over IM) is a Zimbot that sends RSS update alerts to your blog subscribers when they are online. All subscribers need do is add the IMpReSS blog buddy to their contacts list. Set IMpReSS up in minutes now with Zimbie. Click here to download the IMpReSS buddy.”

Zimbie’s Zimbots are ingenious little bots. They’re an excellent way to increase site traffic, as readers will always be alerted as soon as new content has been published. This creates more interaction, thus driving more traffic back to the site. The bots are also ideal for creating your own messenger features.

Will these bots catch on? How easy are they to use for the average, non-techie user?