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Facebook reportedly developing Siri competitor codenamed ‘Moneypenny’

After taking on messaging, cash transfers, and more, Facebook is preparing to challenge Apple in the virtual assistant arena. The social company is in the process of developing a Messenger-based Siri competitor called Moneypenny, a new report indicates.

Details are a bit scarce at the moment, but The Information says that the system will differ slightly from other personal assistants. Rather than sending your queries to a computer for processing, the system is said to have “real people” answering questions. So far the only uses rumored to be in the works are general research and shopping, but it could potentially be expanded to offer other services as well.

Other than that, not much is currently known about Moneypenny. No release date has been given, but it’s far along in development to be in the testing states, so it’s possible we could see it rolling out soon.

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Comments

  1. coolfactor - 9 years ago

    No thanks!

  2. sardonick - 9 years ago

    Yay, so we’ll have another half baked quasi-functioning solution. Bully for us.

  3. myke2241 - 9 years ago

    another FB fail in the works! i can’t wait to see how they spin this!

  4. daitenshe - 9 years ago

    As long as they make this a Facebook Phone exclusive I think they have a winner on their hands…

  5. I want to see this. They can’t develop a web site that looks or functions like it was created in the 2000’s, let’s see how they do here. I’m not sure there’s actually any talent working for Facebook, even with their acquisitions.

    • The fact that Facebook has 1.44 billion regular users (March 2015), I’m not exactly sure having an upto date website particularly matters that much. Whether you hate Facebook or not, to have that many folk using it means they must be doing something right, right? ;)

      • Or…. They’re all bored with no life. Everyone I know that still uses Facebook spends the majority of their life on Facebook, constantly reloading their newsfeed, and playing pointless games. They all need to go out and get lives. Facebook is going to fail. It failed when teenagers were once the majority of the online population, and now they account for less than 21% of the social network now. Facebook is simply boring, useless, and completely underwhelming. Most teenagers like myself, when they hear ‘Facebook’ I think of a Social Network taken over my users’ in their 30’s-50’s, and an overly-relied upon blob.

      • paulthefencerfencer - 9 years ago

        Zachchad, yeah but you say Facebook is taken over by people in their 30’s to 50’s. Like that’s a bad thing.

    • coolfactor - 9 years ago

      As a website developer myself, I’m extremely impressed by the work that Facebook has done creating their website. They are truly a leader of the pack when it comes to website development. The Facebook website does not feel like a website to me, it feels much more like another type of platform and experience. But that’s me.

  6. mepphoto - 9 years ago

    This company in the UK might not be too happy :)
    https://www.moneypenny.com/uk/

  7. virtualstorm - 9 years ago

    Why?

  8. MR (@microrentals) - 9 years ago

    It will be extremely difficult to match upto the perfomance of Siri, Facebook will need to gear up high for it. While the idea of challenging Apple on every front seems to be less relevant than the idea of being a copy cat.

  9. Wonder if they got rights to use that name from MGM. Just sayin.

    • chrisl84 - 9 years ago

      Since its just an internal Codename they likely wouldnt have to and just release it under an official new Facebook name

    • mrobertson21 - 9 years ago

      Yes — Facebook, the multi-billion dollar company and its hundreds of retained lawyers most certainly overlooked that fact.

      Good thing you caught it! I’ll make sure Mark sees this.

  10. jkruehne - 9 years ago

    I am not an expert in any of those issues : D but it shows one thing for sure: services are more powerful than platforms …
    (?)

  11. erikrichardlarson - 9 years ago

    One of our customers at Skedool.it renamed their digital assistant Ms.Moneypenny :) In fact our founder talks about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WYLgYdDfAE

  12. I’m sure it will go great in the highly successful Facebook Phone.