BBH LABS / ROBOTIFY.ME

10 December 2012

Ever wondered what you'd look like in robot form? Contagious spoke to Mel Exon, managing partner and founder of BBH Labs, the brainchild behind Robotify.me

Brand: BBH
Media Type: Online; Social Media
Product Category: Media & Publishing
Source: News
Agency: BBH; BBH / London
Production Company: BBH / London
Tags: beta; online; social media; robots; experiment

What is Robotify.me?

It's a simple service that takes your social data and turns it into a robot, unique to you. By connecting Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare we can generate a robot for you based upon your activity on those platforms. There are 2.2 billion possibilities in terms of your robot's appearance and it can be updated every day.

Why Robots?

Three reasons.

1. We think they're a more entertaining way to learn a little about our online social selves.

2. At BBH Labs we're interested in 'artificial' intelligence: how it starts, where it can go, what it means for us carbon-based lifeforms.

3. We like them.

What are you hoping to achieve with this project?

It's an experiment. We wanted to see if we could build a light service that credibly represents people's social behaviour in robot form and we wanted to test a couple of hypotheses:

1. People are interested in learning about their online social behaviour and what it says about them.

2. Discovering this in an entertaining way is more fun than reading a pie chart.

And hoping these questions will be answered:

1. Will people change their behaviour in response? For instance, will they upload more photos, or check in less frequently?

2. Can an agency team pull off building a low cost service over a few months without a client being involved?

What will the Robot tell you about yourself?

Your robot is a mirror version of your online social self. Robotify.me currently gathers data from Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare based on your social activity, including how much you comment or RT. In the near future we'd like to add Instagram, G+ and Pinterest. Check out the Roboguide on the site for a few hints about your robot.

What happens once you've created your Robot?

A couple of things: you can use the share buttons to download and share your robot with the world. If you use #robotifyme on Twitter or Instagram we'll spot it and your robot could end up in our hall of fame on Pinterest. There may even be a prize or two.

Again, if you want to know more about the genesis of your robot you can also check out our Roboguide, which gives several hints as to what the characteristics of your robot may mean. A more comprehensive version of this guide is in the (short term) pipeline.

We're interested in knowing if any revelations from your robot spur you to any changes in behaviour. And does your robot tally with how you think you behave socially online?

Does your Robot stay the same or change every day?

Your robot is set to update automatically every week, but it's really up to you how often you update it. You can come back to Robotify.me whenever you want to generate a new robot, based upon your latest data.

What can you do with your Robot?

Aside from sharing it and updating it daily, it's early days for your robot and Robotify.me. We've deliberately licensed it under a Creative Commons license and used open source code libraries because we're keen for people to find new uses for it.

We're already thinking about 3D-papercuts and 3D-printed personal Robotoys, not to mention creating a more immersive Robocommunity online.

Why do you think people will be interested in their social profile?

The social web is still pretty new and we tend to be fascinated by our own behaviour. Yet it's not often that we have an opportunity to reflect on what it might mean. We hope Robotify.me is a light, entertaining way to find out more.

Can you explain what some of the parts of the Robot say about me?

The parts of your robot relate directly to how you behave in social media. So, if you have rakes for hands that means you tend to collect a lot of content. If you have a speaker for a mouth, well, you probably update your status a lot. Check out the Roboguide on our site for a few hints.

Who came up with the idea?

Robotify.me is a BBH Labs experiment. It's been an in-house BBH operation to deliver it: conceived by the Labs team, built with the BBH technology team in London, logo and site designed by the designers at BBH Zag, with robot illustrations by Mick Marston.

Is my Robot unique?

It is highly likely to be. There are over two billion possible robot combinations and the different body parts are evenly distributed across the whole population; so it's just as unlikely that two different users get exactly the same robot as you are to bump into the identical version of you walking down Regent Street.

Are any of BBH's clients involved?

No, this is purely an agency experiment. We always keep an eye out for potential client opportunities, however, so if the robots were to become superstars we would certainly look into new ventures for those little bots.

https://www.robotify.me/

The image above is the Contagious robot, based on our Twitter stream