“I expected a couple of hundred users, but instead I got 20 times more.” A student at the KFKZ created a Telegram bot with book price comparisons that went viral on X (Twitter)

Chatbot success at X (Twitter)

«Friends, a good friend of mine made a cool bot (I like it) that allows you to quickly compare book prices between different stores and publishers», — wrote user X (Twitter) with the nickname faith00f8 on March 11.

His post caught the attention of Ukrainian users — it currently has almost 180,000 views, over 5,000 likes, 1,000 bookmarks, and over 60 comments. Many people liked the bot.

«I just tried it. Very useful bot, saves hours of searching and comparing on the Internet, I will definitely continue to use it», — noted user @Nastya_Od_.

However, the comments also contained a lot of criticism and requests to improve DeKnygy, in particular to increase search accuracy and add more bookstores.

«Some books are impossible to find (I tested Simmons’s „Terror“) because of either a too general title or something else that could be eliminated. If the bot recognized the Author — Book Title format, it would be possible to give more precise queries and get better results», — noted user DissonantWalker.

Soon, the developer updated the bot and added support for Readeat, Sens, MEGOGO Books, and Vivat stores. The update also introduced a mark for out-of-stock books and an improved sorting mechanism.

Interview with the developer of the DeKnygy bot

As dev.ua found out, the bot was created by a student at the Kyiv Vocational College of Communications named Yegor. He is in his final year of studying to become a programmer.

«One day I was looking for a book in English on the Internet and noticed a difference of 200 hryvnias between two different stores, so I had the idea to make a bot that would help me choose the cheapest option. Firstly, I tried to search for something similar on the Internet, but I couldn’t find it, so I decided to act,» the developer told dev.ua in the comments.

According to him, the bot works as a regular aggregator, receiving a request from a user in the form of a book title, and searches for this book in specific stores. In his opinion, the bot will be useful to all book lovers, since «they know that buying books requires some money.» The main target audience is young people who read quite a lot and prefer to do it in the most profitable way.

Yegor said that his friend only had 11 followers on X (Twitter), so he was hoping for a few thousand views, which would bring in a few hundred users. In the first 5 hours, the bot was activated by 231 users, and the developer stayed up until 3 am, monitoring the logs to quickly fix possible bugs.

«In the morning I saw 2,093 registered users, and I was very happy, and actively collected feedback to improve the result. Currently, the bot has 6,685 registered users and 9,500 requests. I expected a couple of hundred users to validate the idea and collect feedback, but instead I got 20 times more users than I expected», — the student commented on the popularity of the bot.

The developer said that he likes critical comments because they allow him to «find weaknesses» and improve them.

«Many users wrote about the small number of stores, so I have already added 4 stores, and I will add more. I can add many stores, but for now my priority is to improve the quality of the search,» explained Yegor.

He claims that the inaccurate results are the result of the stores themselves, but he filters those results anyway. According to him, the search has already improved and is now better filtered, and most of the missing books that users reported are now found, but «there is always room for improvement».

«I personally have never used Google to compare prices, because it’s just not convenient for me. On the other hand, Telegram bots are very popular, and many people find it more convenient to use various services in the Telegram bot format. My friend even uses ChatGPT as a bot», the developer commented on one of the user comments.

Yegor says that he will release updates for «DeKnyga» as long as «there are good suggestions for improving the bot from users», or as long as he himself has good ones.

«In general, I plan to develop it, maybe even create a website later. I plan to monetize it, but definitely not now, because the priority right now is to improve quality», — the developer said about his plans.

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