Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) is experiencing rapid growth as this communications technology begins to catch on more fronts and create not only new opportunities for businesses to use this technology, but also for other businesses to create new products and services around it. With that in mind, it's not surprising that there are several events looking to launch and give WebRTC in general some badly-needed face time, and show off just what's coming up in the field and how these things will impact business in the near-term future.
The VCIG-Live event set for Thurs., May 16, will be focusing on the issues associated with desktop videoconferencing, which is one sector that's getting a lot of use out of WebRTC principles and practices in general. Sponsored by the Visual Communication Industry Group--who reportedly happens to be the largest videoconferencing users group in the industry--there will be plenty of discussion about WebRTC in the mix, along with a variety of similar soft codecs, to show just how big of an influence WebRTC is having on the field.
To further underscore WebRTC's importance in the field of communications, another event is looking to open up at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, Georgia. The WebRTC Conference and Expo, running June 25-27, will feature a variety of industry figures and organizations showing off product and staging events to foster discussion on the growth of WebRTC and the various possibilities it poses.
With two events on WebRTC set to run within six weeks of each other, it's easy to see that this is a sector of the market that's poised for substantial growth. Examining the concept makes it easy to see reasons why this is the case; desktop videoconferencing will likely gain a lot of ground from a technology that allows users to stage video conferences between smaller numbers of users just from a Web browser.
While right now, not many Web browsers can handle the full capability offered by WebRTC, the pool is likely to widen in the short term, and that's leaving a wide variety of businesses looking to get into the fray. Better yet, the multimedia capabilities offered by WebRTC--voice and video chatting, file sharing and the like, --open up several different possibilities in terms of future product releases. That's going to leave current frontrunners in the field looking at new ways of doing things--imagine what happens to Skype when users can just open a Web browser and start chatting--and has already made for no small controversy in communications.
Keeping up on the wider scope of developments in the field, whether at an event or just by following the developers, will likely pay off well as more new and exciting features develop.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi
