We've been discussing WebRTC a lot here over the last year, and sometimes you have to take a step back and make sure you've brought everyone up to speed. So here's a new little primer describing what it is and why it's important. Enjoy!
Personally, I'm not excited about WebRTC until Apple caves and adds native support to iOS and I don't see that happening anytime soon. BUT, once they do, that'll be the bellweather for allowing our newsroom to direct interviewees to "call" them by going to a website on their mobile phone and tapping a link to call the reporter they want to speak to. Finally we'll have nice Opus-quality sound, instead of crummy POTS-quality sound, for our bites.
Technically that can be done right now, but it's still a lot to ask regular interviewees to download an app or do something special with their phones to call us. Even trying to get them to use Skype would be a VERY hit-or-miss operation. It's got to be a thing where we can reasonably expect that everyone with a smartphone can just call up a webpage and tap a link and poof! They talk to us.
Apple adding native WebRTC support to iOS won't automatically mean we can do what I describe, but where Apple goes the industry tends to follow. It won't take long...6 to 12 months I'd guess...before my scheme ought to be viable.
Cool primer, thanks for doing this.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm not excited about WebRTC until Apple caves and adds native support to iOS and I don't see that happening anytime soon. BUT, once they do, that'll be the bellweather for allowing our newsroom to direct interviewees to "call" them by going to a website on their mobile phone and tapping a link to call the reporter they want to speak to. Finally we'll have nice Opus-quality sound, instead of crummy POTS-quality sound, for our bites.
Technically that can be done right now, but it's still a lot to ask regular interviewees to download an app or do something special with their phones to call us. Even trying to get them to use Skype would be a VERY hit-or-miss operation. It's got to be a thing where we can reasonably expect that everyone with a smartphone can just call up a webpage and tap a link and poof! They talk to us.
Apple adding native WebRTC support to iOS won't automatically mean we can do what I describe, but where Apple goes the industry tends to follow. It won't take long...6 to 12 months I'd guess...before my scheme ought to be viable.