While some have branded WebRTC as a disruptive influence on the way browsers and telecommunications companies view communication, this disruption is decidedly a good thing. Indeed, with WebRTC, real-time video, voice and text chatting and file sharing are never more than a browser window away, whether you're sitting in front of a desktop or out and about with just a smartphone.
Either way, WebRTC is here to stay, especially with the support of major players like Google and Mozilla. Indeed, with Chrome and Firefox together making up the majority of the browser market, other browsers have no choice but to follow suit.
However, while there is a lot of talk about the potential of WebRTC, there don't seem to be too many implementations that are directly affecting the average Internet user, particularly in terms of embedding the technology into a website. Fortunately, Fresh Tilled Soil, a Boston-based UI and UX design firm, recently launched a WebRTC-based video chat widget that allows anyone to easily put real-time video chatting on a Web page.
Using the widget is fairly straightforward, requiring only that you decide on a channel name and share the link with a friend to get started chatting, as long as both users are running a compatible browser, of course — the latest stable version of Chrome will do on the desktop, or the latest Chrome Beta on Android. Likewise, embedding is as easy as can be, requiring that you copy and paste the embed code provided on Fresh Tilled Soil's website into your own page.
Unlike other WebRTC chat enablers, such as Bistri, Fresh Tilled Soil's WebRTC widget doesn't require that you login or link to a social network account to chat, making it a nice lightweight choice for quick and dirty use — and an excellent way to put WebRTC on your website today.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
