Just this week, I was trying to log in to a WebEx conference a few minutes before my scheduled meeting. I quickly realized my computer wasn’t compatible – I needed to download the latest version of Flash. After downloading it, restarting my browser and logging back into the portal, I was running late. The meeting went without a hitch afterward, but the current method of communicating over the Web is changing. Experiences like mine will soon go the way of the modem handshake. The next step for communicating over the Internet is WebRTC.
WebRTC enables real-time communication right in the browser. No software, no downloads, no plugins – just communicating right when you want to. I recently spoke with Dmitry Dragilev, senior tech evangelist at Fresh Tilled Soil, a team of designers, coders and UX experts that helps entrepreneurs and businesses create user experiences for Web and mobile applications through consulting, training and events.
Fresh Tilled Soil recently introduced a WebRTC-based video chat widget that allows anyone to easily put real-time video chatting on a website. Using the widget is fairly straightforward, requiring only that you decide on a channel name and share the link with a friend with a compatible browser to get started chatting.
Dragilev explained that only months ago WebRTC was still something people were just talking about, but today we are seeing more companies actively develop solutions and use the technology to improve real-time communications. It aims to become something more than just Google Hangout or Skype, where you download, install, register and connect to communicate.
WebRTC Challenges
He explained that one of the biggest challenges for a WebRTC developer is keeping up with the constantly evolving landscape. Google, Mozilla and other WebRTC leaders are making updates frequently – sometimes every few days. You may create a solution that works one day, but won’t the next because of new updates.
“We sort of live and breathe on the WebRTC discussion forum and that’s what the life of a WebRTC developer is like these days. It’s very early on, people are jumping in, there are tons of products people are trying to build, but the con is that it’s so early on that the technology is not 100 percent stable and so everything is being updated constantly,” he said.
There’s also an issue of adapting network infrastructure to meet the demands of WebRTC.
“In places like New York and any big city where you’re supposed to have pretty good service, a lot of times you don’t. The network infrastructure will need to improve,” Dragilev said. Implementing WebRTC, especially in high-density areas like major cities, will become a balancing act of limitations of connection and quality of communication.
The Future of WebRTC
We talked a lot about the capabilities of WebRTC and speculating what will be the most popular use cases with the technology. It’s a great opportunity for business to communicate with customers and vice versa, businesses to communicate with clients and other businesses, and for personal use among consumers. But what will stick? Dragilev says definitely business communications – just as Web conferencing and virtual meetings have taken off in the corporate world, so will WebRTC, enabling real-time communications over the browser.
“There are so many applications with WebRTC that go beyond video chat. Video chat is just kind of scratching the surface of it. What we’re working on now, for example is video recording. It’s just native to the browser. It brings a lot of the capabilities of video processing inside the browser,” he explained.
Another capability we may see one day in WebRTC is gesture recognition. The technology will be able to track users’ eye movements, facial expressions and gestures to enhance communication. While we could speculate a lot on what we could see from WebRTC, Dragilev says it’s definitely the future of communications.
“The days of installing software and having to log-in have become so convoluted. WebRTC is just easier -- it takes down all the barriers of trying to do something like video chat,” he said. “It’s on the Web, it’s very accessible, it’s very portable and the best part really, is that there are no add-ons or software to install, because that’s what sets people back to using any technology.”
Visit Fresh Tilled Soil’s website to learn more about its involvement with WebRTC and the future of the Web. You can also take advantage of an opportunity to learn about the business impacts of WebRTC, educational resources and sessions related to various areas of focus and WebRTC workshops at the WebRTC Conference and Expo in Atlanta, GA in June.
Edited by
Blaise McNamee
