Facebook's Zuckerberg bets on bots

Mark Zuckerberg has announced Facebook's Messenger app has started to allow users to communicate with businesses and other organisations via chatbots.

He told attendees at the social network's F8 conference in San Francisco that he believed the bots offered a better way to communicate with services than using specialised apps or making phone calls.

However, Facebook's previous efforts to let third-party services run on top of its platforms have had mixed success.