Two messaging services. Focused on consumers. Doing practically the same thing. Do they compete or cooperate under Facebook’s roof?
Messenger and WhatsApp are the biggest messaging platforms toady. Messenger announced 800M monthly active users recently, while WhatsApp celebrated hitting the 1 billion mark. As they both strive to continue with this rapid growth, I have to question – are they joining forces or competing fiercely between themselves.
The reason I raise it stems with how they implemented web support and VoIP:
They are taking different architectural approaches. But they end up implementing the same feature set.
WhatsApp in 2015Here’s what WhatsApp did or was rumored to be working in the last year:
Here’s what Messenger did in the last year:
Not much of a difference…
Running such a thing at scale of 100’s of millions of people is painfully hard. Doing that twice under the same roof is even harder:
Where would each of these services go next for growth?
The above slide from eMarketer shows how in some countries, the main competitor of WhatsApp is Facebook Messenger – and vice versa. I think each of them tries independently to raise his users base – with no real regard of the other’s footprint at any given location.
This one from Activate goes to show how growth for both these platforms come from the same areas – and where they overlap or compete on the same set of users.
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Something doesn’t work out here for me, though it is hard to lay a finger on it.
WhatsApp is probably still a strange bird in Facebook, far from the rest of the company and its DNA. Getting it in line with Facebook will take considerably more time.
The post Are WhatsApp and Messenger competitors or partners in Facebook? appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
Probably not.
I wrote about Peer-to-Peer and WebRTC recently, and got this interesting question due to it from Fabian Bernhard on LinkedIn:
Without arguing about the quality of a specific Open Source media stack, would you say that WebRTC was as big a thing if it didn’t run in a web browser?
I guess the answer is no it wouldn’t be that big a thing.
Here’s where I am getting at it. There are two popular slides I usually use:
The one above explains that WebRTC sits at an intersection – it appeals both to VoIP people as well as to Web people.
The second slide above is about what makes WebRTC so transformative – it is about the fact that it is Free, but also because it is available for Web people.
Without the web browser part, we would have been left with only Free.
We’ve had open source media engines before. GStreamer is a popular one. Codecs were a bit harder to come by – especially those that don’t require patent payments (royalty free). It wasn’t the best thing out there, but it worked – people still use it today.
WebRTC made the open source version of a media engine as good as a commercial one – it came out of an acquisition of a commercial media engine vendor after all.
But that’s where it stops – it wouldn’t have made such a transformation in the market – it would be more of the same with a small evolutionary step. Nothing to write home about.
The browser bit, though… that made VoIP available and open to everyone with some HTML and JS experience – a lot larger pool of talent – and one dabbling a lot in experimentation. This is what got us so many use cases.
Mobile might be differentFor mobile only use cases, WebRTC would have made all the difference – same as it does today. The idea behind it in mobile isn’t that it offers a browser experience or that it is available in the browser (it isn’t on iOS). The idea is that it would have been the cheapest route to a product than anything else out there. And with the trend of communications moving in-app, that would still make the impact it does there relevant.
Which brings us full circle.
Let’s assume mobile is eating up the world. Let’s assume it is only a matter of time until content creation and not only content consumption moves from the PC to mobile. Once that happens – who cares about what happens in the browser?
It will all be in-app anyway.
And there – WebRTC is making a difference.
Kranky Geek India takes place in Bangalore on 19 March 2016. Register to join us!
The post Would WebRTC be as Big a Thing if it Didn’t Run in a Web Browser? appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
This week we had the addition of a real-time counter for calls in a queue. And in other news we would like to thank everyone that contributed to supporting the FreeSWITCH developers during their summit! They were able to make some exciting progress on some much needed planning and syncing thanks to your support!
Join us Wednesdays at 12:00 CT for some more FreeSWITCH fun! This week we have Jun Sun from Netspectrum! And, head over to freeswitch.com to learn more about FreeSWITCH support.
New features that were added:
Improvements in build system, cross platform support, and packaging:
The following bugs were squashed:
WebRTC use cases? An endless list of opportunities.
Here are a few, off the top of my head, of use case I’ve came across in the past year or so, where WebRTC was used or seriously planned to be used.
Did I miss any WebRTC use cases? Definitely.
What will you do with WebRTC today?
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And if you built anything – might as well publicize it on the WebRTC Index.
The post WebRTC Use Cases appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
These developers are working hard to bring you more great things from FreeSWITCH. Make their week a little easier by donating to keep them fed. Keep them firmly planted in front of their laptops! Donate today!
Not too big, but not small either.
Here’s a shocker – Facebook Messenger has been updated 19 times on Android in 2016. WhatsApp has had 25 releases in the same time span. And we’re not even in the middle of February.
We are talking about the two messaging applications with the largest number of monthly active users, with WhatsApp surpassing the one billion milestone. gulp.
Should we place messaging apps under weight watchers?To deliver an app that weighs 26 MB to a billion people (I am thinking WhatsApp here), you end up sending over 23 petabytes of data (translation: a shitload of bits). Doing that 25 times since January 1st…
I took a stab at looking into the consumer messaging apps (some of the enterprise ones are larger, though less frequently updated). Here’s what I found:
#1 – They are all fattening upThe scatter graph above is a bit scattered, but it is easy to see that most apps are increasing in size over time. Since September 2014 until January 2016. They all migrated from the 10-20 MB sizes into the 20-40 MB sizes. That’s a doubling in their weight in less than two years.
We don’t think about it much, but we’re in a serious need of a diet here:
The bar chart above shows how big the latest version of each of these messaging apps is.
Te results are rater surprising:
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I wonder when a diet will be called for. And maybe it already is.
Kranky Geek India takes place in Bangalore on 19 March 2016. Register to join us!
The post What’s the Size of Your Messaging app? appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
This week we saw the addition of FreeSWITCH initiating late offer calls. This week the FreeSWITCH developer team is meeting to discuss improvements and future features for FreeSWITCH. You can support this effort by donating to help keep them fed while they work. Donations can be made here: FreeSWITCH Developer Summit
Join us Wednesdays at 12:00 CT for some more FreeSWITCH fun! And, head over to freeswitch.com to learn more about FreeSWITCH support.
New features that were added:
Improvements in build system, cross platform support, and packaging:
The following bugs were squashed:
Back in October 2013, the relative early days of WebRTC, I set out to get a better understanding of the getUserMedia API and camera constraints in one of my first and most popular posts. I discovered that working with getUserMedia constraints was not all that straight forward. A year later I gave an update after the […]
The post getUserMedia resolutions III – constraints unleashed appeared first on webrtcHacks.
If you aren’t using AppRTC yet then you should start.
I had a few customers last month who had quality issues with their service. They were trying to understand the root cause of these issues, and at times, the question raised was “is WebRTC up for the task?”
The list goes on.
The fact that now you get a fully implemented media engine in the browser for free is great. The problem is, it gives you (or your developers) the opportunity to blame the browser: It isn’t us. Google’s engineers did such a crap job with X that we just can’t fix it.
More often than not – this won’t be the problem.
When in doubt – check AppRTCGoogle launched AppRTC quite some time ago.
AppRTC is Google’s way of showcasing WebRTC in their simplest version of the “Hello World” program. This being WebRTC, there are many moving parts, but to some extent, AppRTC is rather baseline – especially in its dealings with media.
This makes AppRTC a great baseline reference when you have issues with the media paths of your own service or just want something to compare it with.
Got an issue? Test what happens when you run AppRTC and compare it with your own service. If you see that your service isn’t performing in the same manner, chances are the problem is on your end – and now you can start diverting focus and resources towards searching the problem instead of blaming the browser.
Where to look for the problems?
Google has another great analysis tool – test.webrtc.org
You open the settings, insert your own STUN and TURN server configuration – and start the test.
It will then check the system and network connections to give you a nice view of what the browser is experiencing – something you can later use to understand the environment you operate in.
Why is this important?With WebRTC, it is easy for developers to blame the browser. This isn’t productive.
Your first task should be to create a baseline reference you can trust. One that enables isolating the issues you are experiencing systematically.
AppRTC is a good place to start.
The post Are You Using AppRTC as Your WebRTC Baseline Reference? appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
Our next Kranky Geek event is taking place in India.
Kranky Geek events? We did them twice. Both times in San Francisco. Both were very successful events. In both we didn’t know if these are one time gigs or something we want to continue doing.
Then we sat down to plan 2016, and came up with three planned events. The first one is taking place in Bangalore, India.
As with any Kranky Geek, this one is about developers of real time communications.
Like previous Kranky Geek events, it is free to attend. Sponsors take the burden of enabling us to plan this event and then pay for everything around it.
Google has been taking the lead here and helping us a lot in getting these events off the ground – in a way taking the leap of faith in our ability to manage these events.
IndiaGoogle asked us to do an event in India, so we happily obliged. For me, it would be the first time in India, making the excitement on my end even higher.
India makes sense in a lot of ways. Many of the vendors I end up looking are vendors that are local to India. Others are vendors with large development teams in India who end up doing a lot of the WebRTC development. Kranky Geek India gives me personally a great opportunity to meet many of these people in person.
To make things short:
Where? Bangalore, India
Exact location: MLR Convention Center
Date and time: March 19, 11:00 until we finish
How do I register? here
Our sponsors this time are Google, TokBox and IBM. Expect a large cadre of interesting speakers and topics – some local and some international in nature.
I’d love to see you with us at the event!
The post Join us for Kranky Geek India: March 19 appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
Just making sure you’re not missing out…
If you don’t know, in the last year I’ve been part of a great team of partners. We are building together a WebRTC monitoring and testing service called testRTC. The service is up and running for some time now with an increasing number of customers.
The most crappy part of our service was our website (not the one customers are using, but rather the one potential customers look at). So we updated it recently.
One of the main additions to that website is the new blog there. I’ve got an editorial calendar for it running until March with weekly content that I want to share with you, but felt that BlogGeek.me isn’t the best of places for it – it was too focused on testing or too related to testRTC.
What will you find in our testRTC blog?So some of the content will be relevant to everyone while other parts of it for those using testRTC.
Subscribe now and follow usIf this sounds interesting, I suggest you subscribe to our blog or social media link(s):
The post Subscribe to the New testRTC Blog appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
Dumb pipe or not, data services thrive mainly out of the telecom world these days.
Can Telecom Services survive the Internet?Telecom Services are an interesting notion. For over a hundred years we’ve been taught that Telecom Services=Phone calls. Then messaging was added to it in the form of SMS on mobile. Telecom services themselves assume that their role in life is to sell us our communication services.
This is no longer true.
I remember working on 3G-324M. A circuit switched video protocol, now dead to the world at large. In many of my discussions, people complained about their inability to add services on top of what a carrier provided – there were too many layers of debilitating bureaucracies.
Today? Everything operates over an IP network. Most of us don’t even care if it is cellular, landline, wireless, or whatever – as long as we get our bits on the line – we’re happy.
While we are all happy using VoIP services and discussing how disruptive it is to carriers, we haven’t seen nothing yet.
The wheel has turned. In the past, advantage lay in owning the network and offering managed services on top of the network. Today, and moving forward, advantage lay with those who can operate their service across networks.
This means that carriers are left with their own network, and a DNA of working inside their own managed network – something that makes it harder for them to operate in this new reality.
Here are two areas that drive the message home:
#1 – Google FiGoogle Fi is how mobile phones should operate. It is Google being an MVNO and offering mobile plans to its customers. Instead of buying a plan (and maybe a subsidized handset) from a carrier, you can just purchase a plan from Google – and use a Nexus smartphone.
What makes Google Fi so different is that it operates on 3 different networks:
Read the FAQ for this one – it is quite telling.
Here’s one piece of it:
What happens if I start a call over Wi-Fi and then lose my Wi-Fi connection?
On your Project Fi device, if you start a call over Wi-Fi and then your connection weakens or drops (such as when you leave your home or office), Project Fi seamlessly transitions your call to a cellular network (if one is available) so you can keep talking.
Calling is no longer tied to a cellular network. Fi has 2 cellular network and whatever Wi-Fi you happen to be on. And it decides what to use based on past experience of Google – and is able to change that dynamically mid-call.
Fi is not your typical MVNO. Or your typical VoIP provider. Or your typical carrier.
It is just how things should be.
#2 – Internet of ThingsThe Internet of Things to me is everything but a carrier. The hint to that is in that first word – Internet. You don’t really need a carrier for that – just an IP connection. Any IP connection.
While there are use cases that will necessitate a carrier (or just his SIM cards?), most of them don’t have a carrier as a prerequisite for their existence.
I like this slide of Octoblu – an IOT platform that was acquired by Citrix:
It shows the various players in the IOT space:
Nothing about the underlying network. No one really cares what that ends up being. Which makes sense. For this to work, you need an ubiquitous network. Not necessarily one with high bandwidth or no packet loss – but one that you can assume exist. Which is what we have in most of the modern world now.
Final ThoughtsNo. This isn’t the end of carriers.
Yes. They will still make boatloads of money.
Much like electricity is a utility, access to the Internet is a utility.
The services on top of it though? They don’t necessarily belong to the carriers.
The post Google Fi, Internet of Things and the Bleak Realities of Telecom Services appeared first on BlogGeek.me.
This week mod_vpx saw some cool tweaks and mod_conference saw some improvements to the auto bitrate in personal canvas mode. Join us Wednesdays at 12:00 CT for some more FreeSWITCH fun! This week we have Simon Woodhead from Simwood! And, head over to freeswitch.com to learn more about FreeSWITCH support.
New features that were added:
Improvements in build system, cross platform support, and packaging:
The following bugs were squashed:
Phosfluorescently utilize future-proof scenarios whereas timely leadership skills. Seamlessly administrate maintainable quality vectors whereas proactive mindshare.
Dramatically plagiarize visionary internal or "organic" sources via process-centric. Compellingly exploit worldwide communities for high standards in growth strategies.
Wow, this most certainly is a great a theme.
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