Where Does WebRTC Fit in Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts had to happen. When Google is consolidating everything, so does communications.

I’ve been asked about my opinion of Google Hangouts, especially with its relation to WebRTC. So here it goes…

Google has been doing some housekeeping of late. I still can’t get over the closure of Google Reader. In the case of VoIP, Google had 3 different “competing” services: Google Voice, Google Talk and Google Hangout. They were different, but at the end of the day, it was rather confusing. So they consolidated, taking off Google Voice – at least for now – and bringing something that is fresh, in the line of current messaging solutions (think WhatsApp) with the touch of Google to them, and the wink towards Skype with free multipoint video.

There were questions asked about this new service – essentially – is WebRTC a part of it.

The easy answer? It is irrelevant to the wellbeing of WebRTC. That’s what I wrote half a year ago on NoJitter. And it is still true. Who cares?

If they don’t add WebRTC now, they will in the next release. Why? Because of their investment in it.

To make WebRTC a reality, Google made these investments so far:

• $68M in acquiring GIPS
• $106M in acquiring On2 (for other things as well, but for similar reasons – making video royalty free)
• Undisclosed amount of money to settle with MPEG-LA on patents for VP8
• Engineers working on VP8 and VP9
• Engineers working on WebRTC
• Evangelism of WebRTC

What reason do they have to do that if the end result isn’t going to be used by Google?

I am sure this is still pocket change at Google but it is taxing in two very important ways:

1. There’s an ongoing cost to this. They can close it just as they are doing to other things they found unnecessary. So why is WebRTC any different?
2. There’s a lot of management attention here when it comes to building the ecosystem around it
   1. Enticing chipset vendors to jump the wagon
   2. Battling on patents with MPEG-LA and now with Nokia
   3. Fighting over mandatory video codecs in WebRTC
   4. Dealing with things like CU-WebRTC from Microsoft

There’s a price to pay here, which to me means that if WebRTC isn’t in Google Hangouts then it was for the sole problem of timing. It wasn’t ready in Google’s mind for what it needs Google Hangouts to do today.

Next important release of Google Hangouts? WebRTC will be there. If it isn’t already…