WebRTC: Another Minecraft block?

My Facebook page looks better than yours. I found this super nighttime background of my home skyline, Hong Kong and I made it my background image. It’s really cool and makes my page unique and different. I also have a crazy Linkedin profile and it let me put the logos of my previous companies on the page too. Linkedin used to have a WordPress plug-in so my posts would show up there. Not any more, guess there was some technical reason, who knows.

This is progress? All of us being locked to some set format using rules established by companies whose sole interest is figure out how to monetize my own freaking data. Facebook —  go screw yourself.

But yet, didn’t we live with this before. The training wheel days of the Internet. When you immediately recognized the words, “you’ve got mail.” The days when AOL ruled the world from it’s castle in Ashburn, Virginia with buildings full of obnoxious instant millionaires working at their Minecraft like existence erecting walls to keep others out and keep us in. All for just $19.95 a month.

Try as they might. The smoke n’ mirrors didn’t last. We saw past the game. We grew up. We got smarter. We weren’t scared of the technology. We didn’t need the protection they said we would. We were free from the shackles.

As WebRTC finds it ways into daily application, there is a very real risk that some will see this as yet another Minecraft block. A way to lock us into whatever color world they want to paint. The very nature of WebRTC sets a situation for the continuation of an unfederated world. Island upon island of communications that don’t communicate.

The ever handsome, Adam Brault, @ &yet has written a great piece today about breaking that chain. Establishing a methodology to allow us to “find” one another outside of the bounds of set walls. Adam has a long history with XMPP, which he muses perhaps with a moderate re-do could find new life helping WebRTC users. I’m a closeted DNS queen believing that things like NAPTR and SRV could be made friendlier and more accessible to the common programmer.

The next real challenge is upon us. How will we find each other to communicate? The answer will likely result in the massive devaluation of Facebook and Linkedin. I say good. Let the next stage of freedom begin.