OK, so WhatsApp IS the most widely-used instant messaging app, but it’s certainly not the best. The Facebook-owned software has many worthy competitors, one of which is Telegram.
We have written about why you should use Telegram instead of WhatsApp elsewhere on the site, but one feature we didn’t touch on is the presence of bots.
We’re not talking about Russian bots trying to influence elections. Telegram bots are useful tools that can do everything from helping you streamline your productivity to helping you discover new music.
There are literally thousands of bots available on Telegram. So, how do you know which ones are worth your time? Just read on to find out.
1. Weatherman
The Weatherman bot keeps you abreast of the latest forecasts for your location. You can view one-day, two-day, and weekly forecasts. You can even customize your notifications so you only receive an alert when the forecast meets specific criteria.
2. Feed Reader
Contrary to popular belief, RSS isn’t dead. It remains one of the best ways to stay abreast of all the sites you care about. Feed Reader works with regular RSS feeds, but can also read public Facebook pages, and YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.
3. What Music Bot
You can think of What Music Bot as Shazam for Telegram. It can recognize and identify songs.
To use the bot, open a chat window and hold down the Record button. Release the button to send the recording, and, after a few seconds, the bot will tell you the name of the artist and track.
4. DeLorean
Sadly, despite the name, this bot won’t help you time travel. It will, however, make sure you never forget anything important.
If you write a message to the bot, it will offer to create a notification for you at a defined time in the future. For example, you could write “Email Dave about his favorite cheese” and get DeLorean to remind you next Thursday.
5. Crypto Whale
Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum; the list goes on. Today, there are thousands of altcoins out there. If you have a diversified portfolio, it’s difficult to track the price movements you care about. Crypto Whale might be able to help. It provides on-demand charts, prices, and market capitalization for most coins. It’ll even let you know about upcoming ICOs.
6. Just Dharma Quotes
If you’re ever having a bad day, you can always turn to Buddhist quotes for a hit of uplifting inspiration.
Just Dharma Quotes will provide you with a phrase whenever you ask for one.
7. GetMedia
GetMedia lets you download photos, video, and audio from most of the leading social networks and video sites.
YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, and Twitter are all supported. Just make sure you don’t breach any copyright laws when grabbing content.
8. Pomodoro Timer
The Pomodoro technique is a time-management methodology. It introduces brief “rests” into your working day. Traditionally, you should split your time into 25 minutes of work and five minutes of respite, but use whichever split work for you.
9. To PDF
To PDF is a productivity bot. It can convert DOC, DOCX, ODT, TXT, and JPG files into the PDF format.
Just send your files to the bot in the app, and you’ll receive a PDF in return moments later.
10. Skeddy
Skeddy is similar to the previously mentioned DeLorean. Its core purpose is sending you reminders.
The bot can understand natural language, thus allowing you to set reminders with your voice. It can also create recurring reminders and postpone existing reminders.
11. UberTaxi
Uber’s status as the premier ride-sharing app in the United States might be under threat from Lyft, but the company is still extremely popular; it provides a staggering 5.5 million rides per day around the world. This bot lets you order an Uber to your location without using the Uber app.
12. Wolfram Bot
Wolfram Bot brings the power of the Wolfram Alpha website to Telegram.
For those who don’t know, Wolfram Alpha is one of the web’s most well-known computational knowledge engines. It answers factual queries from its bank of “curated data.” It will not link you to individual websites.
13. Spotybot
Spotybot is a multi-functional Spotify bot. It lets you listen to music from within the Telegram app, add songs to your Spotify library, and share tracks and playlists from friends.
14. Giphy GIF Search
A good GIF is a surefire way to brighten up a chat, or perhaps make people groan, depending on your standpoint.
Giphy GIF Search works across all your existing Telegram chats. Type @gif [search term] to find the perfect animation.
15. PronunciationBot
It takes years of frequent practice until you can say you’re truly fluent in a new language, although with some well-deployed online laguage-learning tools you can be conversational quickly. With PronunciationBot, you’ll be able to convey your needs wherever you find yourself. The bot supports 84 languages.
16. Trending Bot
We live in a world of fake news. So perhaps it’s better to get your current affairs from the world’s major search engines and social networks instead.
The Trending Bot monitors Google Trends, Twitter’s Trending Now, and YouTube’s trending videos so you’ll always know what’s hot.
17. Text to Speech Bot
If you struggle to type using an on-screen keyboard—or if you’re just downright lazy—Text to Speech can help. As the name suggests, just start speaking and the bot will transcribe your voice into text. It can use both the wit.ai and Google Speech backends.
18. Markdown Bot
OK, so these days we have emojis to brighten up our messages, but texts can still be a little underwhelming.
This bot lets you add bold, italic, and underlined text to your messages. Just type @bold, @italic, or @underline respectively.
19. PokerBot
Time for a bit of fun. PokerBot lets you play Texas Hold ‘Em against both your friends and random Telegram users.
But be assured that PokerBot is not a gambling app, and no money is involved.
20. Storebot
Is there a bot you’d love to use but that we haven’t covered? If so, then Storebot is the answer. It’s the official Telegram Store Bot.
You can browse available bots, send bot recommendations to friends, and install new bots in your Telegram app.
Telegram Bots as Far as the Eye Can See
These 20 bots add a fantastic selection of useful and usable tools to Telegram. And they might be all that you need to finally dump WhatsApp and go all-in on Telegram.
However, remember that Telegram is far from the only service that offers useful bots. If this article has inspired you to deploy some bots in other apps you use, check out our list of Android chatbots, productivity bots to automate tasks, and useful Facebook Messenger bots.
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