When it goes live in the next several weeks, the new bot -- currently available under the moniker ToBeSmarterChild -- will pick up where the original SmarterChild bot left off after being brought offline last year. In addition to providing news, information, weather, and games like its predecessor, the new SmarterChild will also add more personalized and in-depth services.

Those include reminders, an always-on notebook for jotting down ideas, and a way to leave messages for AIM users who are offline. (The bot relays stored messages once a user greets it.)

There's another addition, as well: a subscription fee, likely to be about $10 per year. It will mark the first time that ActiveBuddy, or any consumer IM bot provider, will charge a fee for their agent's services to the public.

That's an especially radical departure considering that SmarterChild had originally been intended simply as a demo, designed to show off the ability of ActiveBuddy's bots to merge data sources (like streaming stock quotes, or entries from a dictionary database) with a conversational interface.

"SmarterChild demonstrated to customers what our platform and software tools can do, and ... it gave our VP of engineering the scale he needed to test what he built in the lab," said Chief Executive Steven Klein.

He added that the company had been divided over how to leverage SmarterChild's success, though ultimately the decision was made to see whether the company could turn the bot into a recurring revenue source.

"Some of us were asking whether we could reap some revenue from the sort of accidental success of the original SmarterChild demo," Klein said. "It's not our long-term business -- we're not in the subscription media business. But in this day and age, accidents happen and if they're sort of tangential to our core business, perhaps we can make money without distracting the company from its core mission."

He added that consumers are likely to subscribe simply because of the way that SmarterChild makes it easy for users to access data, without having to search the Web.

"It's more magnetic and appealing [than other online media] in a number of ways," he said. "For instance, it's easier to get your weather [from SmarterChild] than putting in a URL, using a menu, inputting your zip code, and so on. It's a more direct way of getting information."

Potential Conflicts?

While it remains to be seen whether consumers agree enough to pay up, the relaunch of SmarterChild also raises other issues. SmarterChild's retirement from active duty stemmed from its popularity. After having chatted with upwards of 9 million consumers, ActiveBuddy began to worry that SmarterChild was competing for attention with the bots that the firm was rolling out for AOL Time Warner's entertainment divisions and on behalf of other advertisers.

"We were poised to launch the Austin Powers bot for New Line Cinemas, and SmarterChild was getting bigger and bigger traffic numbers each day," said spokesperson Kathy Englar. "We realized that's not what our business is about. Yet, we had this hugely popular service, and that's something that we'd been thinking about -- whether there was an opportunity there."

Whether the reincarnation of SmarterChild competes with bots that ActiveBuddy is currently running on behalf of advertisers -- or with bots developed and served by third-parties using ActiveBuddy's flagship product, BuddyScript -- likewise remains to be seen.

What this means for ActiveBuddy's ongoing relationship with AOL also is unclear. Currently, ActiveBuddy runs the two-month-old AOL Wireless Informer (also known as AOLBuddy), which is a SmarterChild-like bot aimed at users who access AIM via mobile phones. Earlier this month, the company debuted dnLFlipIt on behalf of AOL advertiser Dr. Pepper/7-Up, Inc.

However, America Online is testing a SmarterChild-like bot of its own, which is based on Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, rather than BuddyScript.

AOL also already works with other vendors of bot technology, such as New York-based Ailiant's InfiniteAgent unit, which designed the AOLSafetyBuddy and SantaClaus IM bots. Additionally, during the past few weeks, new interactive agent vendors have been contacted by America Online about potential projects.

America Online spokesperson Jane Lennon said the media giant does not have an agreement with ActiveBuddy to relaunch SmarterChild, and that permission is required for any companies activating bots on the AIM service.

However, Lennon declined to comment on why ToBeSmarterChild is immune from being "warned" by users -- which would seem to indicate AOL's involvement on some level. Typically, partners contract with AOL for the online service provider to provision Screen Names that are protected from community-policing restrictions like warning, and from limitations like the number of characters that can be delivered per-session.

ActiveBuddy also declined to discuss its relationship with AOL in detail.

"Clearly, they're dabbing in the [bot] area," said ActiveBuddy's Englar. "But we have a good, win-win partnership with AOL."

At the very least, ActiveBuddy's moves to capitalize on perceived demand for consumer IM bots comes as a number of players are revving up similar offerings targeted at business customers. This week, Instant Technologies unveiled an IM bot framework for use in developing interactive agents for IBM Lotus Sametime, while Cobra Technologies took the wraps off its out-of-the-box Sametime-based bots, and its bot-making services.

Christopher Saunders is managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.com.

Looking to make sense of how to integrate IM and presence in your business? Join us at the Instant Messaging Planet Spring Conference and Expo, Feb. 24 and 25 in Boston. Sessions include "Beyond IM: Point of Presence and Collaborative Applications" and "Integrating IM into a Traditional IT Structure."