Talking avatars

[harry]

Guys, webmarketing is taking a new mode.

Have any of you ever tried to use animated characters that would speak for your website or blog.
This may attract your visitor and they may get involved with these virtual salespersons

Developers of such characters (virtual salesperson) claims that, using their service
siteowners have experienced increased their sales by 10%.
What you all think of this, will it affect the traffic.

[Pumazooma]

That's the sort of thing I'd find really annoying. If a web site started talking to me I'd look for the off switch straight away or leave.

[harry]

Originally Posted by Pumazooma

If a web site started talking to me I'd look for the off switch straight away or leave.

Such avatars will not just talk but will also interact with you,
They may help you for reading articles and blogs posting for you…..

Hope physically handicapped visitors may find it useful.

[Peter]

It depends, it may attract some visitors and it may be annoying for some visitors. Harry, can you provide any links to sites who have implemented such a startegy or the one who provide this service?

[harry]

Peter,
you can have more details about these talking avatars at : " oddcast.com/sitepal "

[kev woodman]

You can use AIML to create a bot for your site. AIML is pretty easy to get the hang of and you wouldn't have to spend too much time to get one up and running. Google Pandora bots to see what I mean. There's free bot hosting and all sorts.

[sanderson]

Originally Posted by harry

Peter,
you can have more details about these talking avatars at : oddcast.com/sitepal/

Sounds interesting, quite expensive though!

[Rodney]

That's good. I guess we will have to wait until it gets popular and affordable as well. Also there isn't much buzz around about it as yet. No reviews.

[chris]

Very true, the web-marketing is certainly evolving with tools which are technologically advanced. The concept of animated characters speaking and interacting with the users instead of sales people is not a bad concept at all. It may not work with several people, as someone can get an answer to a general and definite question but to get real answers for different types of queries I don’t think it can be of much use because users or visitors will be looking for perfect answers from real people and not characters. As said by harry it can be a real boon for physically handicapped people if the concept is seen from their point of view.
Anyways we’ll see in future as the concept gets more popular among the mases.

[paul]

Bloggers are also using avatar commonly known as gravatar, by this you can also use avatar appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites.

[harry]

Gravatar are simply small (static or animated) image of aroung 80*80 pixel.
These small graphic can be used for your identification purpose, so visitors can make you out easily.

Paul, as compare to talking avatars these gravatar are not much effective for webmarketing as they are not communicating with visitors.

[paul]

I personally will avoid walking/talking avatar. Alternatively I find these are sticky marketing gimmicks from the house of talking avatar in your site.