Why Google Loves WebRTC

Todd Carothers' well penned post about WebRTC is totally in line with my thinking about the new technology. Lot's of money will be made, a bunch of startups will enter the space, many will die off, some will be successful, some will be acquired and of course, there will be Google, this decade's Yahoo or AOL-where new ideas come forth, some get acquired and others die. But for Google WebRTC is a big market opportunity, something that Todd points out when he wrote, and I quote:

"Meets Google’s modus operandi to implement technologies that better help it understand it’s users to sell advertising."

By this I mean the holy bucket of money that's sitting on the sidelines, not yet even coming into YouTube's coffers. I'm talking "commercials." Worldwide television commerical ad spend dominates and Google isn't even in the running today at getting much of the spend. But, as WebRTC technology improves now delivery of content, content that is dropped into a call, or around a conference call flourishes. Google's already figured out how to target ads, so as Sending Party Pays becomes the pay model for delivery of rich and massively sized data over other parties networks, users of Google's WebRTC technology (i.e. inside the Chrome browser, on Android devices and Chromebooks) all get served up television like commercials. 

This takes Google smack into the middle of your viewing experience. And, delivers it for free to you. Your devices become like televisions. Remember when houses had more televisions than people? Well if you apply the same approach to laptops, smartphones and tablets, plus monitors and all, with WebRTC totally web browser centric Google can give away Chromebook and Chromepads all day long and recoup their money with targeted delivery of commercials.

It's the era of the all knowing about you, and your calling habits, your friends and relationships, plus your calendar and social patterns are what Google is collecting. Add in the delivery of commercials you want to watch and that can impact your lives, and Google wins.

 

Comments

[Disruptivedean]

I agree in part.

I think the most under-rated aspect of WebRTC is its relevance to the media buiness. Most discussion has been about its role in enterprise (eg UC or contact centres) or telcos (extending IMS or Telco-OTT), or more "general web use".

Integration with media or TV makes a lot of sense - not just for dropping ads into conference-calls, but also for things like "interactive reality TV" - imagine a million people shouting at the referee, or Simon Cowell, via their tablets or Internet TVs.

You can forget about the sending-party pays bit though - that is one of the most mythical beasts in all of telecoms. You'll see WebRTC unicorns before any sort of reverse-data charging.

Dean Bubley