The ability to deliver real-time communications is possible, as long as all parties involved have the same device, software or plugins. As this isn’t often the case, high quality video conferencing and other communications can be a challenge in real-time. The commercial world is relying more heavily on broadband to support remote professionals, branch locations and telecommuters, putting more demand on real-time communications solutions.
To help meet this demand, the open source community came together for the development of WebRTC. This “Web Real-Time-Communications” allows for the real-time connections consumers and professionals want without the need to download proprietary software or install plugins. So popular is this new wave that it’s already been adopted by Opera, Google Chrome and Firefox.
The word is still getting around, however, as a number of consumers still don’t know what they could be demanding in real-time communications. To help educate the public and bring vendors and partners together, TMC helped to launch the WebRTC Conference. This year’s event took place in Santa Clara and featured a demonstration by Weemo.
Cloud-based embedded video chat, video conferencing and applications are all key areas of development for Weemo. The company offers a platform with a set of APIs and SDKs that enable application developers, software vendors and telco providers to provide real-time video communications in their applications.
As a demonstration of what Weemo can do for the market, the company offered an example of a sales or call center application integration that allows a consumer browsing a particular website to see a number of different choices and then engage an agent to ask a few questions. While not all interactions will require a video conversation, they can come in handy. This example included a fictional customer seeking information on whether or not a printer will integrate with a device he has on hand. The ability to show the agent the device is a great asset in the interaction.
The video frame serves as a floating window on the screen, enabling the user to engage in a point to point video chat. The platform also enables multi-party video conferencing where a number of different parties can be geographically or globally distributed, conversing with any device on the network. Weemo is also focused on taking this capability mobile. While the world waits for iOS and IE to get on board, a native WebRTC client is essential to getting the most value out of the solution.
In a demonstration given the next day at WebRTC Santa Clara, Weemo brought in individuals taking part in Dreamforce, the Salesforce.com event going on at the same time. To get their Weemo counterparts at Dreamforce involved, they launched their video conferencing platform via WebRTC. In essence, the crowd at WebRTC Santa Clara could see and hear what was going on at Dreamforce, and vice versa.
Such communications only lend additional value to the current technologies we take for granted. Instant connections without regard to location, device, software or plugins will extend that value even further, allowing progress to continue without barriers.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
