The number of WebRTC projects that have been popping up in the last few months has been staggering. While many simply focus on the technology's core real-time video and audio functionality, others have looked to expand that functionality. For example, GENBAND, Requestec and Huawei all recently released WebRTC gateways that bring mobile services to the desktop and Web services to mobile devices.
More recently, a company called Wreally Studios has leveraged WebRTC to create a superior collaboration platform for coders. The company's platform is called Codassium and it allows two parties to establish a coding session using Mozilla's Ace editor. Of course, using the power of WebRTC, Codassium also enables live video chat between the two coding parties, enhancing collaboration.
The platform can be used for more than just collaborative work, of course, and in fact seems to be the ideal tool for conducting live interviews of programming candidates remotely. Other suggested uses include teaching online coding courses, security patches and online mashups.
As usual, a Web browser that supports WebRTC is necessary to use Codassium, so both parties will have to use the latest version of either Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome. Those interested in learning more about Codassium can view the demo on Google Code, or try it out directly as it's available from Google's app engine.
It's been pointed out that platforms like Codassium are perfect examples as to how WebRTC provides a different experience from dedicated real-time chat clients such as Skype — though at its core, WebRTC does tread heavily on Skype's stomping grounds. However, the two don't necessarily need to be at odds and Microsoft has acknowledged this to some degree by toying with basing future versions of Skype on WebRTC.
Still, Microsoft isn't the type of company to go down without a fight and it has actually proposed its own rival standard called CU-RTC-WEB, which has failed to gather the support or momentum of WebRTC.
Edited by
Ashley Caputo
