{"id":17263,"date":"2019-09-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/facebook-libra-facebook-acquires-israeli-chat-bot-developer-servicefriend\/"},"modified":"2023-08-30T09:09:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T09:09:33","slug":"facebook-libra-facebook-acquires-israeli-chat-bot-developer-servicefriend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/facebook-libra-facebook-acquires-israeli-chat-bot-developer-servicefriend\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook [LIBRA] \u2013 Facebook Acquires Israeli Chat Bot Developer Servicefriend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\" align=\"center\">Social media giant <strong>Facebook<\/strong> has acquired \u2018hybrid bot\u2019 developer <strong>Servicefriend <\/strong>\u2013 an Israeli-based tech startup in a deal whose acquisition was undisclosed.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\" align=\"center\">The news was reported by the Israeli publication The Marker, based on information provided by one of Servicefriend&#8217;s investors, Roberto Singler. Facebook was not too communicative with details about the agreement. A Facebook spokesperson said<em> &#8220;we acquire smaller technology companies from time to time. We don&#8217;t always discuss our plans.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Despite Facebook\u2019s lack of eagerness to reveal its plans, we can deduce from this development the purpose of the acquisition. Servicefriend co-founders Ido Arad and Shahar Ben Ami, and at least two other team members at the startup \u2013 the VP of Research and Development, as well as the VP of Technology \u2013 have all joined Facebook\u2019s recently launched <strong>Calibra<\/strong> subsidiary. Calibra is the company that will be responsible for developing the wallet service to support the use of the tech giant\u2019s proposed Libra cryptocurrency Libra. It will also represent Facebook\u2019s interest at the Libra Association which currently has 28 members including <strong>Uber, MasterCard, and Coinbase<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Servicefriend.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-205155\" src=\"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Servicefriend.jpg\" alt=\"servicefriend startup\" width=\"696\" height=\"198\" \/><\/a>Although Facebook does not reveal what they will working on the most obvious according to other sources would be the construction of a bot, or a network of bots, for customer service for the Calibra wallet. The company has about 30 employees since it launched back in 2015 with its flagship product being an artificial intelligence (AI) solution used in service centers to communicate with customers. The startup has worked with Facebook before developing hybrid bots for the Messenger service to compliment the teams of human in the company.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">This development happens amidst the admission by Libra lead and Facebook executive <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/libra-david-marcus-on-libra-stablecoin-wont-threaten-monetary-sovereignty-of-nations\/\">David Marcus<\/a><\/strong> saying that Facebook still plans to launch its embattled cryptocurrency next year. In an interview with Swiss newspaper NZZ published last Friday, Marcus said that <em>\u201cThe goal is still to launch Libra next year\u2026 Until then, we\u2019ll need to address all questions adequately, create a suitable regulatory environment.\u201d<\/em> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/crypto-to-crypto-trades-will-be-tax-free-in-france-bruno-le-maire-talks-about-libra-and-cryptocurrencies\/\">France<\/a> <\/strong>and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/german-cabinet-approves-new-blockchain-strategy-to-block-the-advent-of-libra-currency\/\">Germany<\/a> <\/strong>have expressed their interest to bar the launch of Libra in the EU but that remains to be seen whether or not other Eurozone members will be part of this embargo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social media giant Facebook has acquired \u2018hybrid bot\u2019 developer Servicefriend \u2013 an Israeli-based tech startup in a deal whose acquisition was undisclosed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,84,74],"tags":[4689,5211,5001],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}