Twitter Bots Create Surprising New Social Connections - Technology Review

On Twitter, nobody knows you’re a bot; also see Twitter Acquires Malware Protection Company

You might have encountered a "Twitter bot" before: an automated program that perhaps retweeted something you wrote because it had particular keywords. Or maybe you received a message from an unfamiliar, seemingly human-controlled account, only to click on an accompanying link and realize you'd been fooled by a spambot.

Now a group of freelance Web researchers has created more sophisticated Twitter bots, dubbed "socialbots," that can not only fool people into thinking they are real people, but also serve as virtual social connectors, speeding up the natural rate of human-to-human communication.

Twitter Bots Create Surprising New Social Connections - Technology Review