Sports Illustrated launched bots on Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Slack today to share its coverage from the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.
An additional bot will launch on Skype later this week. A complete list can be found on the GameOn website.
"Every hour on the hour you are going to be pushed the top trending Sports Illustrated (SI) Olympics article, [based on] whatever SI is able to glean from their user data, but if there's breaking news, immediate coverage on that will come in between the hours," said Alex Beckman, CEO of sports chat company GameOn. GameOn partnered with Sports Illustrated to create the bot.
The bot appears to take advantage of a Facebook Messenger policy change made Monday that allows news outlets and select other businesses to send messages on a subscription basis.
"So much of the pride, passion and glory of the Summer Games experience gets lost in simple scores and medal counts. Our chatbot partnership with GameOn opens up new audiences to the rich storytelling that is a hallmark of SI, without switching apps or dropping what they're doing. The best brand in sports journalism is now the fastest," said Patty Hirsch, vice president and general manager of Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated Group in a statement posted online Tuesday.
