Messaging and WebRTC go together like horse and carriage

How do you begin a conversation? Do you pick up the phone and dial, or do you first reach with a message – with WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage or whatever messaging application you prefer? I don't know about you, but for the last few years, my "calls" almost always begin with a message. For my wife and close friends, WhatsApp is usually my first choice. For colleagues and techies, I use Google Hangout. For coworkers? It Slack time for me. Am I alone? Not by a long shot. Messaging services are huge. And getting bigger by the day. The chart below shows the most popular players in the field – all racing towards the 1 billion monthly active messaging users mark. Facebook, the owner of both Messenger AND WhatsApp is in the lead. The messaging space is very dynamic, and changes happen very very fast. In China, WeChat is nearly ubiquitous - up to the point where companies sometimes have WeChat pages before they have a website for their business. In the meantime, Facebook keeps adding new features to Messenger: Facebook M - a virtual concierge that answers your questions via Messenger Businesses on Messenger – enabling businesses to communicate with customers Facebook at Work - a social messaging service for the enterprise Messaging applications are in the process of transitioning into platforms. Which means that we will interact with these services more and more each day. What interests me though is what happens post-text. When we need to take the conversation "live" – like (gulp) a phone call. WhatsApp had the right idea when they used to offer that capability. When you were in a WhatsApp chat you could click on the button in the top bar of the app to initiate a call. That that phone button would switch you to your phone's dialer to place a call over your cellular network. The real game changer was when WhatsApp introduced its own voice calling service from within the application. For its 900+ million users, this meant that the conversation continued within WhatsApp itself, courtesy of VoIP calling. Why is everyone clamoring to follow suit and add VoIP calling to messaging applications? First of all, because everyone wants to keep you "in-app" to control the user experience and environment. And this just keeps getting easier with new technologies – like WebRTC. WebRTC makes it infinitely simpler to add voice and video calling to nearly any application – in browsers or in mobile apps. No wonder Facebook's Messenger uses WebRTC. It allows browser support, while at the same time eliminates the heft investment that VoIP required in the past. To make things even simpler, communication API platforms such as Twilio are offering WebRTC SDKs to reduce the development challenges that remain. This approach opens doors to practically any type of a business application to offer VoIP communications from within applications. Which markets are ripe for this integrated functionality? Nearly any self-service application in which users manage their own accounts. Like banking, insurance or even a hairdresser's booking application. Imagine the user inside the application, checking their account balance, buying more insurance, or booking a haircut. Maybe they want to consult with someone before making a decision? Or see an image of how that haircut may look? You let them tap their question or comment via text messaging, add an image, if they like and initiate a whole new level of engagement – with the context you need to leverage it to the max. Your answers are more focused and more likely to satisfy. If all this can be made available in a single application, then why go anywhere else? We've come a long way from the circuit switched world of voice and SMS. The shift to VoIP in was big in some niche areas. But Internet messaging surged and left them all behind in the dust. With the help of WebRTC, voice (and video) are set to overcome other calling alternatives and become the next "must-have" of any messaging platform. To make this opportunity a reality, businesses will need to outsource this to the communications API providers that are ready to offer it.