Speaking SIP

This column will appear in the November issue of Unified Communications (News - Alert)

by Jonathan Rosenberg

Unless you’ve been on holiday at sea for the last year, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled across the term “Web 2.0” in your Internet travels. As far as buzzwords go, “Web 2.0” is a great one. It captures the idea of a next-generation Internet: Web 2.0 is not just a small improvement; it’s big enough to be a full-version change.

Typically, folks point at sites like YouTube (News - Alert), Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as examples of Web 2.0. However, despite its common use, the term is not very well-defined. The Wikipedia entry for Web 2.0 cites several of its key characteristics. These include using the browser as a platform, using data as a driving force in the application, and leveraging the power of network effects through participation. The last one is particularly important. More than anything else, Web 2.0 seems to be about user-generated content, communities and collaboration. Sites like YouTube get their content entirely from users; the site itself is merely a platform and has no content or value on its own. The value comes from the people. The same is true for social networking sites like Facebook, where user-provided data and user collaboration are the central theme. From this, I think there is a simple litmus test for characterizing Web 2.0. If you were the only user of the application, would it bring you a lot of value? If the answer is a resounding no, there is a good chance that it’s a Web 2.0 application. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter all pass this test.

Indeed, the best-known Web 2.0 sites aren’t just about user content, they are about users collaborating about user-generated content. YouTube isn’t just about uploading pictures; it’s about commentaries, ratings, tag clouds and communications among users about that content. Facebook isn’t just about personal Web pages; it’s about sharing information with your friends and comparing your likes and dislikes with others’.

However, something is missing from these sites, something big. If Web 2.0 is all about collaboration and communities, then it is missing the most important form of collaboration within communities: real-time collaboration. Human beings naturally crave real-time interaction — voice, video and instant messaging. Real-time interaction is how people work together when they really need to get something done, when they really want to discuss an idea, and when they really want to make a decision.

Imagine, then, how much better Web 2.0 could be if real-time interaction were part of the puzzle. Consider Facebook for a moment. One of its features is the virtual “poke.” You poke a friend, who sees your poke, and that’s it. A poke is similar to the casual, “how’s it going?” that you might say to someone you pass in the hall. It’s content-free but serves several purposes. One is a simple acknowledgement — letting someone know that you’re thinking of them. Another purpose is to lower the bar for communications. You don’t need to think about what to say or what to ask: You just click “poke” — and you’ve communicated! What the feature lacks, however, is the natural follow-up that happens in the real world. When you pass someone in the hall and say, “how’s it going?” sometimes that person will actually answer, and you end up having a conversation. Consequently, it would be natural to allow someone to respond to a poke with a voice chat when both users are online and browsing the site at the same time.

Another Facebook example is groups. Facebook allows its users to define groups, and other users can be invited to join those groups. Groups can have their own discussion lists, officers, photos, videos, news and so on. Often, the discussion lists are a large number of short messages from various members, collectively forming a conversation. It would be even more compelling if you could see who else was viewing the same group page at that time, and join an ongoing voice chat specific for that group. Similarly, having instant messaging chat rooms would allow for real-time text conversations, and those conversations could be kept for others to view when they view the page later.

YouTube would also benefit greatly from real-time conversation. Imagine if there were a persistent voice and text chatroom associated with each video. With a single click, you could join the rooms associated with the video you were watching and be able to talk about it live with others. It would be even more compelling if users could “share the remote” and be able to rewind, fast-forward and restart the video that the group is seeing. For family-oriented video and picture sites, like Flickr, it would allow a Website to replicate the experience of sitting in the living room with your family and flipping through a photo album. That would be truly compelling.

This is where Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) fits in. By using SIP as another part of the Web 2.0 technology toolkit, these applications can add real-time interaction — with instant messaging, presence, voice, video and real-time text. Furthermore, the large number of existing SIP networks would allow those networks to be integrated with Web 2.0 applications. For example, SIP can allow voice capabilities to be extended to users that don’t have VoIP on their computers. Most users do have a regular telephone near their computers, and so a simple PSTN outdial could be utilized in these cases. The existence of SIP for IM and presence (SIMPLE) interfaces into some of the public IM providers would allow traditional presence to be integrated into these applications as well.

So, even though Web 2.0 is not something that is very well-defined, one thing is clear — Web 2.0 is about communities of users that, together, create a network effect that provides significant value. That formula is exactly the same formula that makes real-time interaction valuable. Joining the two, by using SIP to bring real-time capabilities to Web 2.0 applications, is just natural.

Jonathan Rosenberg is the co-author of SIP and SIMPLE. He is currently a Cisco (News - Alert) Fellow and architect for the IP Communications Business Unit in the Voice Technology Group at Cisco (www.cisco.com).