At TokBox we realize that not every recording is created equal.
Sometimes we record something, and for whatever reason it is not really something that we would like to keep around forever. Whether it is that embarrassing profession of true love, or that embarrassing dance tape you made in the bedroom, there are times when it is nice that things can be forgotten and even be removed from the internet.
Enter the delete API for archiving.
Courtesy of loop_oh/flickr.com © Creative Commons
Hey there! If you are a developer with mad skills in UI design or just a user with natural talents in video chatting, by which I mean tirelessly talking and giggling all by yourself while staring at the screen, then I have exciting news for you. We’ve just launched an API that detects the active speakers in a video chat.
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to move or zoom up the chat window of whoever’s actually speaking? At least it makes your “staring” exercise more fun than just looking at the dull, fixed boxes. Even better, it literally makes the conversations, well, more “FACE-to-face”!
Being that the holiday season is upon us, and that the OpenTok API recently turned one, we wanted to bestow the App of the Week honor on one of our oldest killer partner apps – Meet Me Under the Mistletoe!
Before we jump into the details, let’s acknowledge the fact that most social interactions between couples online lack that loving feeling. Being “poked” by your S.O. or love interest on Facebook is about as romantic as receiving a pair of socks for Valentines Day. Cashmere socks included.
At Le Web last week in Paris, Sean Parker predicted that the outcome of the 2012 US elections would be determined by social media.
I think he’s right. But what’s more, I think that next year’s election season will be the first in which face-to-face live video on the web will play a role in determining the outcome of some races.
In an increasingly online world, the web has provided new ways for candidates to reach voters in their constituencies. Candidates can communicate policy, deliver key messages on-demand, and reach out to campaign supporters. But the focus has been predominantly one-way – from candidate to constituent.
Readers of our four part series on TokShow know all the nitty gritty, behind the scenes details around how the app came to life; from stream transitioning to scalability. Now we’re going to take a look at how the TokShow app has actually been put to good use in the real-world.
R&B sensations Mindless Behavior launched the TokShow app, followed shortly by American Idol winner Lee DeWyze. But the most recent TokShow was hosted by American Idol’s season 10 winner, Scotty McCreery. Since the country crooner hosted the live video chat, his debut album, Clear As Day, has been certified gold and sits in the No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.
Our goal for the back end of the TokShow application was to make it as simple as possible while supporting a couple thousand people.
The biggest concern for performance was moving a new fan on stage. When that happens, everyone in the TokShow needs to hit the server to get the connection ID of the next fan. We thought the ‘aha’ moment of a fan meeting the artist for the first time would be a major part of the experience, so making the transition smooth and simultaneous for all of the viewers was critical.
To keep things simple, we used PHP and MySQL on the server. There is very little state saved for the application. We basically need to know:
We had one PHP file to wrap our reads and writes to the server, and that’s about it. For our TokShows we needed only one PHP server, which also hosted the database.
There is a dictum we use to sum up the major belief that drives all that we do at TokBox: Face to face is the future of the web.
In 2007, the company’s emphasis was very much on ‘the future’. Skype hadn’t yet moved into the mainstream. FaceTime did not exist – in fact, the first iPhone hadn’t yet been released. And yet, the TokBox team had a fundamental understanding that the way we communicate online would become more human, and that face to face was the most human form of communication possible over the web.
Building the TokShow app gave us another great opportunity to test our API in a real-world app. And, sure enough, we discovered some additions for the OpenTok API.
Not all clients using the app and participating in the session have the same audio-video capabilities. Some clients use older versions of Flash Player or hardware that does not support acoustic echo cancellation. The acoustic echo cancellation feature was added in OpenTok v0.91.18 (in June), and it works great. It pretty much eliminates acoustic audio feedback. We wanted to build an app that allowed the administrator to see if a potential participant (fan) had acoustic echo cancellation supported on their machine. However, the OpenTok API did not provide that information … so we added it. And the new API includes other information on the quality of each stream in the session. In addition to acoustic echo cancellation support, the API provides other information about the publisher of a stream, including the upstream bandwidth, whether the microphone and camera are enabled, and whether H.264 video is supported. These enhancements were added in the November 10 release of the OpenTok API (v0.91.35).
There are a number of huge challenges being a platform company, as the product we build has to work under many conditions. One of those major challenges is the issue of scaling a realtime communications platform to support both one-to-one conversations and also 5000+ participant talk shows. Now some people might say “Doesn’t YouTube already let thousands of people view a video?” Yes, but the difference is that YouTube is about consuming and OpenTok is about face-to-face.
TokBox Launches IncuBox, a Developer Competition for University Students. Team with the best app using the OpenTok API receives premium mentorship, ownership of IP, plus the opportunity to present to VCs
San Francisco, CA – December 5, 2011 – TokBox, the company behind the OpenTok video platform, today announced IncuBox, a competition giving student app developers the opportunity to receive dedicated tutorial and assistance bringing their app to market.
The team that submits the best app using OpenTok’s online face-to-face technology will be invited to work out of TokBox’s San Francisco headquarters for eight weeks. They will work closely with TokBox’s elite development team, product managers, marketing team and other key players responsible for creating the OpenTok API from the ground up.
