Gigaom‘s David Meyer reports this morning that Temasys announced the release of a platform for businesses and developers looking to integrate WebRTC (Web Real Time Communications) into their apps and services. Skylink, as the platform is branded, is built entirely on Amazon Web Services and is aimed at making it easier for businesses to add RTC-based features such as text, audio and voice chat through both browsers and native applications.
Meanwhile, Microsoft introduced a beta version of Skype for Web, a browser-based offering supported by Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. While Skype for Web will initially require a small plug-in, Microsoft plans to use RTC to eliminate the need for any such additional software across all major browsers. The service is already available for some users and will be gradually rolled out worldwide “in the coming months.”
As I wrote in a Gigaom report a few months ago, WebRTC is a tremendously promising technology with limitless use cases: In addition to various chat scenarios, it can be effective for one-touch customer care in real time (as with Amazon’s Mayday offering) and it will likely play a major role as more video-enabled devices such as security cameras and ATMs become connected to the web. WebRTC still has some hurdles to overcome — standards have yet to be completed, for example, and interoperability concerns exist. Adoption of WebRTC won’t take off overnight, but the technology is finally gaining impressive momentum. Businesses and developers should be considering how they can take advantage.
