October 14, 2007

TokBox Gets Some NYTimes Love

Michael Arrington

57 comments »

TokBox, a cool new startup we covered in August that lets you set up video chat on the fly with no software downloads at all, gets a nice writeup by Brad Stone in the New York Times this evening. Note the comments in our original post - it got rave reviews from readers, which is rare.

Not a lot of new information in the article, except for the fact that Sequoia Capital has apparently put $4 million into the venture. Rajeev Motwani and Tony Bates (a SVP at Cisco) are also listed as investors.

The article also notes that Roelof Botha from Sequoia is involved, the same person who backed YouTube. “TokBox will face more formidable technical challenges than YouTube,” Stone says, which is exactly right. They’re solving a lot of problems YouTube never dealt with by handling two way, synchronous video communication without any kind of software on the computer beyond Flash and the browser.

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Comments

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Serge

October 14th, 2007 at 11:41 pm

Thanks for your previous review Michael! It really helped us get user feedback and improve the service

Cheers,
-Serge
* MISS UNIVERSE

October 14th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

This is one of the most innovative startups in a while. It combines elements of both YouTube and MySpace. For the tech savvy, it can save them tons of money on long distance calls friends and relatives.

You can instantly interact with anyone contact around the world - if they have broadband. Unlike Video IM, you can send Video email if your schedules do not allow for real time contact.

This can also be perfect for business collaboration - and even an interesting addition to an online resume. Imagine standing out from the other techies by embedding this in your resume or portfolio for prospective employers
Faisal

October 14th, 2007 at 11:59 pm

Don’t know , but this was done by Userplan (Acquired by AOL) and stickam and most IM clients provides video chat , what is special about this services to have NYT coverage?

Is it becouse its web based? .. Most new video chat sites uses flash.

Is it because of embedding ? Stickam offers that with many more additional controls.

I really don’t get it.
Dan Ackerman Greenberg

October 15th, 2007 at 12:04 am

TokBox is a great service, and the company seems to be teed up for success. Serge - look forward to seeing what you guys accomplish.

Dan
http://www.ackermangreenberg.com
Johnny

October 15th, 2007 at 12:19 am

Good stuff, i really like TokBox.
Alex

October 15th, 2007 at 12:40 am

I love the idea. This could be huge. But, two things!

1) I’ll have to ask my friend (technical guy) what the barrier to entry is to replicate this offering.

2) This company name stinks! Frankly, as I’m writing this email I’ve already forgotten the name. They need to buy a domain name such as: http://www.iVideoCalls.com or http://www.eVideoCalls.com before they acquired by some larger company like Apple, Cisco, PolyCom….. run don’t walk!!!!!
Stuart

October 15th, 2007 at 1:28 am

This is a killer app for medical (I’m a Medical Physicist, on the development/invention side).
If you want an MD to use something, it has to be drop dead simple, and this is.
I use SKYPE video, and I use WebEx (though I haven’t gotten to the multi-participant VideoConference part yet), but this is simple enough for a Physician to do a quick consult with a Nurse or Technologist who is “in the middle of something” and needs to talk quickly. The privacy issues aren’t negligible so publicly hosted stuff is probably not viable, but the technology…
Michel (ShipPal)

October 15th, 2007 at 4:58 am

@6 Alex - i don’t think the company name necessarily ’stinks’.

It is not generic like iVideoCalls or whatever, such (internet) brands are
generally weak. It needs to be distinct, like Google (not search.com). TokBox to some extent meets that standard, so it’s pretty much ok.

I just signed up and tried it out - indeed, the site and user flow are really damn simple… really how it should be. The voice and video quality are generally ok. Also the integration of “sharing” buttons all over the place makes this thing really viral… It will probably catch on nicely.

But how to monetize? - probably through advertising/banners at some stage (like YouTube), which is generally ok… But i don’t see other monetization opportunities - maybe multi video chatting? probably too soon to start worrying about these issues…

Have fun Serge and team.
ubi

October 15th, 2007 at 5:05 am

congrats guys!
Rajeev

October 15th, 2007 at 6:00 am

Is it available on mobile?
One Million Dollar Girl

October 15th, 2007 at 6:18 am

Very interesting! if it’s available for mobile phone it would be great!
Michael Bailey

October 15th, 2007 at 6:48 am

It’s probably not available mobile, at least not on phones in the USA, because our phones don’t have Flash capability.

This is supposed to change when Flash Lite 1.0 becomes part of the cell phone Operating System, or at least as a downloadable add-on.

Of course, your cell phone browser cannot handle javascript either. Does it?
Thinker

October 15th, 2007 at 7:10 am

Analogy -

Internet market is becoming like movie market..You release a product, it enjoys limelight for some time gets great traffic and then eventually it gets sided by another great product. That being said, I think what YouTube should come is to spawn new brands off YouTube instead of adding new features under same brand.

Had a question though - YouTube introduced flash player for videos. Now do they get royalty from all these websites using Flash for playing videos?
David

October 15th, 2007 at 7:22 am

If you like this you should try Vawkr (http://vawkr.com), too! No-registration video-chatrooms and a developer API for creating your own live video-chat applications. Simple and fun!

Appreciate any feedback,
David
Berlin

October 15th, 2007 at 7:33 am

nothing new. I think flixn quality and api is much better. no auth required.
Steve Ballmer

October 15th, 2007 at 7:50 am

NYT?
Nothing to brag about, I hate those NyTards!

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Dan Schawbel

October 15th, 2007 at 8:44 am

Looks promising, but will not replace YouTube and is not backed by Google.
Jake Akem

October 15th, 2007 at 9:02 am

Seems like tokbox hoping that the mobs will come up with cool consumer applications, but companies like Techcrunch’s WooMe already using this technology to deliver a compelling end-2-end experiences in far more sophisticated ways.

maybe this replaces skype or at least cannabolizes it for video comms, but skype has one hell of a lead…
Jeff Clavier

October 15th, 2007 at 9:10 am

Am I the only one to have received a ton of spam mail from these guys letting me know that friends of mine have signed up for the service ?

I have now 27 similar emails in my spam folder in the last 20 minutes. And worse, they send the email under the name of the person who has signed up, and when you play the video that is linked to in the email, it is advertorial from them. I wonder if my friends asked explicitly that they send all this spam - which I doubt.
Martin

October 15th, 2007 at 9:15 am

Jeff you and me both!!

UNREAL!

60 emails in 25 min or so!
Geir

October 15th, 2007 at 9:15 am

Nope - I have just received 39 emails inviting me to join from the same person.
Faramarz

October 15th, 2007 at 9:25 am

Great idea! It certainly brings value to my pc, but I’m having trouble putting myself in their shoes recognizing a monetization scheme.

I’d like to hear some ideas in that respect.
phenom

October 15th, 2007 at 9:36 am

How are generating income from this service, I am sure it is something innovative or else you find Cisco investing in the firm.

http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
Rodger

October 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am

Great product. I saw something like this but a bit different on G4 TV. Theirs was more like a portal where you can invite up 6 friends to all chat live.

I certainly will be using this new service.

Good Job guys. Keep up the super work.
Serge from TokBox

October 15th, 2007 at 9:53 am

Guys,

I apologize about the spam-email issue. So many people were coming and registering/using the service that our mail server started behaving erratically. You should not be receiving any more emails and we are on it to fix ASAP!

Thank you,
-Serge (from TokBox)
Rodger

October 15th, 2007 at 9:54 am

Will it remain free?
Serge from TokBox

October 15th, 2007 at 10:00 am

To answer Rodger above: yes, we intend for TokBox to always remain free for our users - there is no doubt about this in our minds

Thanks for the question,
-Serge (from TokBox)
Eric Marcoullier

October 15th, 2007 at 10:03 am

Email server fritzing aside, it saddens me that the infuriating “you’ve just signed up so please spam all your friends about us” process is migrating from FaceBook to the world at large.
Rodger

October 15th, 2007 at 10:18 am

I signed up not too long ago and used some automatic service to create widgets on my Facebook account.

So I take it that I could have lets say 3-5 live video mails on my Facebook account? It does support live video mail yes?

I am very interested in applying your product to a new service we a re rolling out. Better yet here is the secret. How can you and http://jajah.com join forces? They have a relatively not so strong video call function but are rival to Skype. They have secured up US$45 million in funding. They will play/their product will play a big role in my new service.

What do you think.
sanmat

October 15th, 2007 at 10:27 am

Its a kind of innovative for using this application. When i reveived i couldn’t find code or button to embed to my page.
http://blogkatt.blogspot.com

Stuart:
What is the application you are currently developing
CD

October 15th, 2007 at 10:33 am

Someone was asking about barriers to entry for this type of service. All of the base-technology has been in Flash for some time. It’s pretty easy to wrap applications around that. There have been video chat offerings for several years now, however, Flash-based is the only way to do this without client-side software install (besides Flash player of course).

However, that said, it’s very, very tough to scale up these types of offerings since the Flash streaming from end-users need to go through a centralized point based on the Flash Media Server. You really need a powerful hosting solution to pull it off. Also, it’s very expensive because you have to pay for up *and* downstreams (YouTube is just downstream) bandwidth.

Maybe at some poing Flash will allow peer-to-peer video streaming. That’d be the only real way to scale such products.
nemrut

October 15th, 2007 at 10:36 am

…like the iPod for web video. This could be the next killer ‘non-app.’
Keith Teare

October 15th, 2007 at 10:37 am

OK, so i tired this. It asked me to give it access to my Linkedin or GMail account. I did :-(.

I have now had 200 emails to myself (I’m in my own address book) and at least 50 friends have emailed me saying they have been spammed also.

It is now 10.35 (90 minutes after It started and I am still getting 10 emails a minute from them.

Their code is NOT ready for prime time.

Also, it never asked my permission to send emails. it simply asked me to make my address book available within the app.

Keith Teare
ceo/co-founder/edgeio
Faramarz

October 15th, 2007 at 10:53 am

Thanks for the heads up Keith. I’ll stay clear fro another few days untill all is resolved.
nemrut

October 15th, 2007 at 10:53 am

…just signed on. easy as 1-2-3. this is going to be very popular. i suggest folks use a disposable/non-critical email address to try it out first.
Rodger

October 15th, 2007 at 11:01 am

I see the strength of the app based around Facebook, MySpace type social networks. However if I went to lets say the main URL the window session is not as large as what you see on the home page.

I think the size of the window is perfect for social networks, if the user wanted a more personal feel and left the social site and wanted a window with just their friends to video chat ,how will the size of the window scale based on the number of users all on at the same time?

I could see two large windows for two users and the gradually scale to fit on a scrolling page. When will the user have the ability to scale the window size outside of a social network setup?
Alex

October 15th, 2007 at 11:01 am

@7 Michael said…..”i don’t think the company name necessarily ’stinks’”.

——Well, I completely disagree. But, that is my opinion. And after learning that they wish to make this a viral marketing model I disagree with you even more.

@7 Michael said…..” It is not generic like iVideoCalls or whatever, such (internet) brands are generally weak. It needs to be distinct, like Google (not search.com).

—–It is not fair to the company to compare it to a “Google” type. A generic/type in domain name would be a homerun for this company. And to say that such brands are generally weak is very off the mark. Just look at what Business.com recently sold for ($440M). Not bad for a company with a “bunch” of links, eh.
david lynch

October 15th, 2007 at 11:07 am

mebeam.com is even simpler, and lets you stream multiple flash instances, enjoy.
Rodger

October 15th, 2007 at 11:10 am

I think you are missing the point here. Even if the name sucks, it is that which will stick in your mind first then the killer app next. People could not care much about the name who wo brought the service. What they want is the service an what it can do for them. As longs as it takes off on Facebook, they would have their home run.

It is user friendly, easy to install, easy to syndicate, and not much paper work of clicks to get what you want. You cannot ask for more than that.

I must confess though I was a bit taken back by the name, but it has a Asian connotation to it and a non English feel. That may help the brand outside of the States in areas like Japan and S. Korea if it can break into those markets.

I could be wrong and you could all very well be right on the name issue. But as I said by the time you install it there is no logo anywhere to be seen, just your call and chat windows and that is all we really want on a social network anyway.
Rodger

October 15th, 2007 at 11:45 am

mebeam.com seems great for a public video conference free solution. It is not in the same level as tokbox. It is like apples and oranges.
naysayer

October 15th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Seems like they’re really pushing the “cute girl” as the spokesperson. I hope she’s getting a big bonus or at least a good agent out of the deal!
Alex

October 15th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

@41

oh ya, I forgot to second that. The lady on the home page is very cute. Maybe I’ll run into in the Marina area:)
naysayer

October 15th, 2007 at 2:32 pm

I suppose I’ll ask on behalf of all techcrunch readers….does tokbox girl have a boyfriend?

I’m taken—but I’m sure inquiring techcrunch minds would like to know!
Whatever

October 15th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

This functionality has been in Macromedia breeze (now Adobe Connect) for more than 2 years. Nothing revolutionary at all…

But if they can offer a good level of service to corporate users, that might be an alternative to over-expensive video/web-conferencing services out there.
Alex

October 15th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

@44

Are you suggesting that Sequoia did not do their due diligence? The mouse trap is the ease of use not the advertising model.

hey techies - Can I use Adobe Flex and build the same thing? Well, maybe not me, but a qualified engineer!
Dan Druff

October 15th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Tokbox is kewl cuz of the way they present the service. But doing live one-on-one video using flash (red5 or fms) can be accomplished in a couple days.
Flope

October 15th, 2007 at 4:18 pm

PSP uses flash 6…
is there any video chat using flash 6 or lower?
ashwin

October 15th, 2007 at 4:26 pm

Thanks for the http://www.tokbox.com and their team …….
4market

October 15th, 2007 at 8:20 pm

To the point about Sequoia doing their diligence… Sure, it’s important to note that the barrier to entry for a one-to-one or one-to-many flash-based video conferencing application is fairly low from an implementation standpoint. Go pick up a copy of O’Reilly’s “Programming FCS” or “Programming FMS2″. eyejot, userplane and others have been doing this for some time, in various incarnations. Flash is, by nature, an embedded application, so no news there.

At the end of the day, tho, the real question is not “can this be done by anyone”, it’s really “who can afford to do this”. To truly scale this to a profitable margin, they’ll need the big bucks — for bandwidth, cpu and marketing. It’ll be interesting to see where 4m gets them.

I expect we’ll see more web apps like this over the next 6 months.
Are you kidding?

October 15th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

I can’t believe this is getting so much press. Big deal. Not new tech.
Helen

October 15th, 2007 at 10:03 pm

Tokbox is cool. But I agree, the tech has been around for some time. Nothing new. Check out the similar video on the fly app from VideoBloom… great app for on the fly video emails.
Christopher Herot

October 16th, 2007 at 1:34 am

I admire their PR but wonder why the NYT made such a big deal. This has been done many, many times before.

Three problems they will face:

1. Most people like to watch, few people want to be on camera. AT&T discovered this at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964. Every few years the cost comes down and someone tries it again. Same result.

2. Unlike Skype, Flash is not P2P. Bandwidth and FMS license fees make for incremental cost for each user.

3. Two-way interactive video is WAY more demanding on network performance than streaming stored video. It works great on a great network, but deteriorates quickly when packet loss or latency goes up. With stored video you can buffer, but buffering means awkward delays in a two-way conversation.
toyqueen

October 16th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

I’m working for a company that has similiar technology. Be that as it may, I don’t see a big future there.

Gail
JP

October 17th, 2007 at 3:26 am

you guys don’t get it… This is not about new tech but about executing. And so far these guys are executing better than anyone before them (at least judging by ppl involved and ease of use)

Jp