Interesting how vendors define themselves.
Oftentimes, when you ask companies to define themselves, you get a complete shopping list. The end result is that you are left without an answer that you can use. Enter Twitter, with its razor sharp 140 character descriptions of the account.
Here's what the WebRTC PaaS vendors I covered in my report (that weren't taken off market) and how they define themselves:
 | #Cloud #Communications #WebRTC #API Start building on https://developers.apidaze.io Makers of @ottspott_co. Happy New Year |
 | Apizee is a provider of real-time communications on web |
 | Follow us for mobile app development news, hackathons & events. Check out our community link below. For questions about your device tweet our experts @ATTCares |
 | Platform as a service and free APIs, SDKs to integrate text, audio, video chat, web conferencing and more into your websites and applications. |
 | Bit6 revolutionizes how developers integrate communications into their mobile & web applications. Download beta SDK for iOS now! |
 | WebRTC pioneer, real-time communication for mobile & web, customer & workforce contextual collaboration, in-app video & live assistance, visual self-service |
 | Unify delivers world leading collaboration & unified comms solutions. Talk to us about #NewWayToWork #NW2W #futureofwork Tweets by Sally ^SH & Jett ^JM |
 | Making the future of digital communications services happen. #Mobile #Messaging #Telecom #Cloud #IoT #WebRTC #SS7 #Monetizing #MessagingSecurity |
 | Powerful, Intuitive #RealTimeCommunications for an all IP-World #WebRTC #OTT #mobile #cloud #KandyMobile #Disruptor50 |
 | OnSIP is a leading provider of real-time communications services for businesses |
 | The SDK that has everyone talking. Grab yours at http://developer.oovoo.com . Now with in-call messaging and filters too! |
 | Communications for Internet of Apps. Open, cloud based video, voice, data communications for enterprise, social, consumer apps across #WebRTC and mobile. |
 | Plivo is a Cloud API Platform and a Global Carrier Services Provider for Voice Calls and SMS. Sign up for a free trial today. |
 | Add video, voice, and messaging features to your app in minutes with #respoke |
 | Show What You See! Deliver a better experience by adding real-time interactions to your web or mobile app. #CX, #FieldService #Telehealth, #CustServ & more |
 | Use the Sinch APIs to enhance your app with Voice, SMS, Verification, Video, and Instant Messaging. |
 | Skylink - WebRTC, audio, video, embeddable real-time communication. |
 | TokBox,a @tefdigital company, operates the #OpenTok Platform, making it quick and easy to integrate real- time communications into your websites and mobile apps |
 | Tropo, now part of Cisco, is a cloud communications API that makes it easy to build voice & text messaging apps. Completely free to try, pay-as-you-grow pricing |
 | Changing communications forever by empowering software people to build the future of our modern communications apps. For support: @TwilioHelp |
 | Cloud platform for real-time communication app development |
A few interesting observations:
- Some don't have an API specific Twitter account - rather a corporate wide account. This makes it hard for developers to understand they have an existing offering for developers
- Some explain their position in the organization and not what they do, which is somewhat sad
- Some definitely are pivoting
As these vendors are in the same place, there's obviously a lot of shared use of words. I've taken the Twitter definitions above, removed unique words and placed them in a tag cloud - the bigger the word - the more appearances in makes:
Community is the derivation of communications, which makes a lot of appearances.
Most focus on Mobile.
To be expected.
WebRTC was less popular in the description. Refreshing and interesting.
Messaging isn't high on the agenda of most platforms.
Some suggestions to the vendors are in order:
- If you are a service within a larger organization, make sure to have a Twitter account dedicated to developers
- Focus on the developer who reads the description and needs to understand what you can do for them, and not who you are within the company
- Bring the same clarity that Twitter description forces you to all your marketing collateral
