The Biggest WebRTC Deployments Aren't Native Ones

WebRTC comes in all shapes and sizes, but to grow, you might want to lose some of its characteristics. If you are a WebRTC purist, then this post isn’t for you. You are not going to like it. Better move on.

Going native with WebRTC might not be your best choice

We're now two years into this new phenomena called WebRTC. There are over 350 vendors out there using it. Some with live commercial deployments. I had a chat a few colleagues at Enterprise Connect this week. One mentioned his disappointment of not having any commercial B2C WebRTC service out there. By WebRTC he referred to the pure embodiment of it: something running in the browser natively. I couldn't agree more, but I believe this is a matter of time. If you look at the largest WebRTC deployments today of services (not API platforms), you'll see these ones out there: Google Hangouts doesn't use WebRTC natively. It has parts of it embedded into its code and then packaged as an extension for all browsers. That said, this is probably the largest deployment that runs WebRTC on a daily basis with a massive number of users. The only downside to this example is that it comes from Google, the main force behind WebRTC, so it is hard to put it out there as a testament to WebRTC's success. While Chromecast comes from Google, it uses WebRTC in a totally different way than Hangouts. It has no bidirectional video capabilities and is only used for streaming an Android's display to a TV. While no specific sales figures have been publicized for Chromecast, the number is in the millions and it is now starting to sell in additional markets outside the US. WebRTC inside… Amazon Mayday uses WebRTC. Just ask WebRTCHacks. It isn't pure in any way, but it is powering Amazon's contact center for its Kindle Fire tablets and enabling Amazon to provide an end-to-end experience unlike any other. For Amazon, WebRTC was the obvious choice as their Kindle Fire tablets internally make use of the Android OS. Vonage is using WebRTC to power its mobile apps. They have customized it for their own needs but are following the actual WebRTC codebase's updates and trying to get back to the fold where it makes sense. With 2-3 million subscribers prior to its mobile apps introduction, having over a million downloads over Google Play's store alone makes it a huge success for both Vonage and WebRTC in my book. If you plan on building a business around WebRTC, I strongly suggest you review the options that are opened to you not only in its limitations to Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers today, but rather think on how to take it elsewhere as well. WebRTC fits in many places – not all of them obvious. It disrupts many existing business models by being free and open source alone. Having it integrated natively in a browser is just an added bonus to some. Treat it like this to increase your service's footprint.