Track: WebRTC and Real-Time Applications Keynote |
| Why is Zoom so much more popular than standards-based videoconferencing? |
| Video conferencing has been around since the 1990s, first based on ISDN for digital phone systems, then H.323, and then SIP for the Internet. The underlying assumption was that phone calls and group communications would all rely on the same standards, creating a universal and seamless user experience. But even as COVID-19 made Zoom a generic term, these standards-based solutions never got much traction. Even for the popular applications, WebRTC seems to have made modest inroads. In this talk, I'll try to reflect on the reasons for this development, and why other standards-based internet applications such as web browsers and email have been more successful. Video conferencing also shares this "fate" with text-based chat, where standards-based solutions are competing with WhatsApp, Slack and other proprietary platforms. I believe that transition from (room) hardware to downloadable software, control protocol complexity, industry structure and communication patterns are at least partial explanations for this development. Finally, I will speculate on how video interaction might evolve in the next few years. |
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