To get started, all you need to know are some very basic programming skills (any language would do) and web space to host your “bot”.

For this example, I have created a dummy bot called “insecure” that listens to your IM messages. To see this live, add insecure@bot.im to your GTalk buddy list and start chatting.

If you like to write a personal IM bot, just follow these simple steps:-

Step 1: Go to www.imified.com and register a new account with a bot.

Step 2: Now it’s time to create a bot which is actually a simple script that resides on your public web server.
It could be in PHP, Perl, Python or any other language.

Example Hello World bot:
The example below illustrates just how easy it is to create a bot.
This example is coded in PHP.

Step 3: Once your script is ready, put it somewhere on your web server and copy the full URL to the clipboard.

Step 4: Now login to your imified account, paste the script URL

Screen Name: insecure@bot.im
Bot Script URL: http://www.insecure.in/imbot.php

Step 5: Add that im bot your friends list. That’s it.

This is a very basic bot but the possibilities are endless.

For instance, you could write a bot that will send an email to all your close friends via a simple IM message. Or you could write one that will does currency conversion.