About Spelunca
Posted: 01/03/2006

Spelunca's Google IM Bot

Spelunca has been hard at work developing a new IM bot that is up and functioning on the Google Talk IM Network. In the coming weeks, we plan on releasing a bot in other networks (AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, and MSN if all goes well). The current IM bot is extremely easy to use - all you have to do is add spelunca.com@gmail.com to your friends list in Google's Google Talk application to be able to use Spelunca's Google IM bot.
What does it do? you're asking? Spelunca's bot will answer your queries much like the webpage interface does, and also performs searched using Google's web API, so that you can simply search through google talk to find things on google, instead of having to use your browser to open google.com and search there.
how does it work? - It's simple, just add spelunca.com@gmail.com to your friends list in Google Talk. Then, send a message to Spelunca, and you'll receive the results of your search in your message window.
Please note that Google's API is in beta, so all queries may not work immediately. Also, the Google API limits Spelunca to 1000 queries per day, so the google search portion of Spelunca may not always be available. Information stored on Spelunca's servers will always be available (ZIP code information, as well as some telephone information and other information is included in that list of searches which should always be available.) Please also keep in mind that Spelunca's bot is also in beta, so there may be times when the bot is not online, or is not answering your queries. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to contact us.

Spelunca is a different kind of search. It's meant to find information you wouldn't normally find about Cities, ZIPcodes®, Area codes, Telephone numbers, and other information yet to be defined. Go ahead, type in a phone number, and see what comes up. Type a city name and state (Houston, Texas for example) and see what comes up. A telephone (248-555-1212) and you'll see the telephone company, as well as other areas around the area code and exchange. Typing in a 5 digit ZIPcode® (like 12345) will display information about that ZIPcode®, along with the area code.
The authors of Spelunca put this information together to be used to find information about people calling you, places you want to go, or for geographical spatial information (like latitude and longitude.) It's up to you to do what you want to with the data - it's all from public sources (Census data, or other databases made public via other sources.) We welcome any questions, comments, or realistic suggestions. Sorry, we can't spy on your grandmother for you :-) Thanks for reading.
-The geeks at Spelunca

Credits

Spelunca is made possible by large amounts of data that are made publicly available throughout various means of transport. Most of the data stored by Spelunca was found on the Internet in various forms. Whether commercially available, or government supplied public data, Spelunca's goal is to make this data more accessable to anyone. Spelunca does or may use data from the following sources: