The “California Gold Rush” of the 21st Century is Communications

In the past decade we have seen tremendous changes in the way we communicate with one another. Whether we are interacting with our family and friends or our colleagues at work, connecting with someone has never been easier.

Everyone has their own favorite method for communicating. Some favor video chat, messaging within apps, text messaging, email or an old fashioned telephone call. The one thing that is certain is that being connected is now key and we have lots of options at our disposal to communicate easily.

This new connected reality has driven many businesses to innovate at light speed to meet consumer demand. Indeed, I consider it to be a new age “California Gold Rush” for the 21st century is the communications industry.

Traditional telephony is no longer as attractive to consumers who can communicate with Over-the-Top (OTT) applications such as WhatsApp. Many people don’t even have a home telephone anymore.

This new reality has left some of the traditional giants of the telecom world reeling and searching for ways to recoup lost revenue. It has also created a market ripe for new and innovative companies to pick up the slack with their solutions. Twilio, Nexmo and Tropo are a few of these innovative companies that started in the “Bay” area that are making a name for themselves.

Twilio’s Initial Public Offering (IPO)

On June 23, 2016, Twilio listed on the NASDAQ (TWLO) and saw a 90% jump in shares.  It is really no surprise that Twilio experienced such an impressive pop on its first day of trading. Investors, developers and businesses alike recognize the value in Twilio.

It was recently reported that over 17% of Twilio’s revenue came from WhatsApp. I believe what’s most important about those numbers is the fact that WhatsApp can rely on Twilio to power over 100 million calls each a day.

Some people wonder why WhatsApp would continue to pay Twilio for their service. It’s simple, WhatsApp is not a telecommunications company, it is a messaging company. Twilio has made telecommunications simple enough for businesses to integrate its capabilities without having to worry about the headaches of building and deploying a global telecommunications infrastructure. Consequently, Twilio now has over 1,000,000+ developers on their platform validating the demand for simple and effective communications.

Nexmo Acquired by Vonage

Nexmo was acquired by Vonage for $230 million on May 5, 2016. Vonage, one of the more nimble of the large telecommunications providers, saw the opportunity to enhance their offerings with the acquisition of Nexmo. Nexmo is the second largest Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) provider in the market after Twilio.

At the time of its acquisition, Nexmo had over 114,000 developers using the platform with the likes of Viber, Expedia, and FitBit utilizing their services. Vonage’s strength in voice, coupled with Nexmo’s robust communications platform, will position the combined company as one of the leaders in voice and message communications.

Tropo Acquired by Cisco

Tropo, another strong provider in the market, was acquired by Cisco for an undisclosed amount on May 7, 2015. Cisco, who have been quite busy acquiring cloud communications companies in recent years, continue to find means to bolster its presence in the market.

Tropo, with over 200,000 developers at the time of acquisition, was an obvious target for Cisco. Cisco is in position to accelerate the CPaaS market by leveraging its large number of channel partners and deep carrier relationships. By combining their new Spark platform built for developers with Tropo, businesses can tap into simple APIs to power their voice and messaging applications.

In Conclusion

With over 7.4 billion people in the world which is continuing to grow at unprecedented rate, we need innovative technology solutions that can evolve just as quickly. We are heading down the path where consumers will soon expect to be able to communicate with family and friends or customer services representatives in every application that they use. Traditional telephony will eventually fade away and become what we deem as “Smart Communications” led by companies such as Twilio, Vonage and Cisco.

Are you ready for the new California Gold Rush?

About Blacc Spot Media, Inc.

Blacc Spot Media focuses on Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) development across web, mobile, native desktop and telephony implementations. Our team works on strategic projects developing custom applications, enterprise platforms and mobile applications for a wide array of clients. If you are interested developing your own WebRTC product or service, let us know how we can help you.

Take a look at our website for more information (https://www.blaccspotmedia.com) or email us at hi@blaccspot.com.