Hmm, I'm torn. On the one hand - this seems like a great use of NLP and sentiment analysis, and I can see how this could be incredibly useful for someone like a restaurant owner who can't monitor twitter 24/7. On the other hand - I feel like this might be the beginning of the end of Twitter as a way to talk to <i>real people</i> - who can do more than send out automated messages.
Twitter and Facebook give businesses the opportunity to <i>interact</i> with their customers. Using those channels as yet another way to talk <i>at</i> customers is wasting that opportunity. The best way for local businesses to use Twitter is to actually use Twitter. Log in, respond to messages, join the conversation, act like a real person and connect with your customers.<p>Polly.IM may be a useful tool if you're already engaged on Twitter, but if you rely on automated responses to drive your "interactive" marketing you're doing it wrong.
This is a side project by my company, PaperG, which is intended to help small businesses. Most SMBs we work with try to manage social accounts, but quickly get burned out trying to keep up and leave them dormant.<p>Polly.IM helps automate routine things (thanking new followers with coupons, responding to check-ins, etc). It also helps identify and and suggest responses to other things like compliments, complaints, suggestions, etc. using our sentiment analysis tech.<p>Would welcome any feedback or suggestions from HN!