WebRTC is already around for quite some time. Even though it’s hard to believe, first version of Chrome with WebRTC support (enabled by default) has been released almost 3 years ago. During all these years browser vendors have been trying to reach maximal compatibility with specification, and developers have been struggling with different implementations. We all were curious about big players’ reaction regarding new technology and when (or if) they are going to join the movement. But there were no doubts that sooner or later WebRTC will be supported everywhere.

So what do we have after 3 years of evolving? Well, the current situation is not so good as most of optimists expected. But at least, it’s more clear now what might happen in the future.

Browser vendors divided into 3 tribes:

• those who already implemented WebRTC according to specification (at least enough to be compatible with others). Here we have Firefox and all Webkit based browsers, such as Chrome (including version for Android), Chromium and Opera.
• Microsoft didn’t surprise anybody with idea to make it’s own, “better” WebRTC.
• Apple has just ignored this “hipster” movement.

It doesn’t look good, does it? So how can companies deliver the software, which uses WebRTC, to their customers now?

Most of them decided to follow an easy way and just ask users to use Chrome or Firefox. Even though it sounds lame, that’s pretty smart solution, when taking into consideration latest browser usage statistics.

According to StatCounter research (based on desktop users statistics), 70% of the market share belongs to the WebRTC supported browsers. Also we can assume that at least biggest part of other 30% users will be able to setup Chrome or FF, if needed. So actually, the situation is not that bad and it may have quite promising outcome.

From the other hand, WebRTC by itself isn’t a Holy Grail, but just a tool, which provides developers with the great power of bringing communication into their products. But here the important question pops-up: do the features (natively provided by WebRTC) cover all user needs?

Definitely no! So far most of WebRTC frameworks provide only video/audio calling with some interface for direct data transfers, but we believe this pause in evolution is just temporal.

The same way as old good Web became a basement for rich and talkative Web 2.0, WebRTC shall begin more advanced communication era — WebRTC 2.0. The number of features that can be built on top of WebRTC is only limited by human mind: file transfer, remote photo demonstration, presentations, Internet of Things etc. Peer-to-peer data transfers play key role here, since they take huge load out of service provider shoulders and eliminate high costs of keeping complicated infrastructure distributed around the globe. It cuts the price of service for end user as well.

WebRTC 2.0 will bring real life communication experience to web. For example, let’s imagine that during conversation you decided to show photos from last holiday to your friend. Important here is word “show”. It doesn’t mean sending bunch of files in zip, but showing picture by picture and telling the story at the same time. So as in real life conversation. Also it’s not a secret that with WebRTC we can transfer data directly (even without quality loss), securely, and provide synchronised demonstration. So in the end it will look like you are showing the photos in person. Here’s a short video trailer of such service prototype.

Amazing, right? And that’s only beginning! I believe, that Web can go further than just writing comments and chatting, especially when having such great technology in disposal. And since the Web is becoming more and more about communication, WebRTC can be good platform for a new era.

There are already some projects that built rich functionality on top of WebRTC: CDN networks, Internet of Things communication frameworks and even games (CubeSlam is good example).

So the next years are going to be even more exciting!