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No catch. Our goal is to enable developers to build great apps that help make two-way and group video a part of the fabric of the web. Our focus for right now

No catch. Our goal is to enable developers to build great apps that help make two-way and group video a part of the fabric of the web. Our focus for right now is on continuous improvement of the service that makes that possible. We believe that there are reasonable ways for us to incorporate monetization in our overall product offering - while still keeping today's basic OpenTok service free. When it's time for us to introduce some of those enhancements, you'll know which ones those are. Regardless, we fully expect that what's free today will stay free. No tricks. No catch.

mewmewmew 16y ago
thanks for the prompt answer! could you explain the following from your terms (http://www.tokbox.com/legal/termsofservice http://www.tokbox.com/legal/termsofservice): 1. tokbox reserves the right to put ads within the videos: "TokBox retains the exclusive right to include and to sell advertising, promotions and sponsorships in the Service that is displayed on Your Websites" 2. also, if I create an opentok app, andd put ads in my website, I have to share the ad revenue with tokox: "For example, you may sell sponsorships or branding in areas around the live video streams, provided that you and Tokbox agree in advance on appropriate compensation to be paid to TokBox." in summary, in return for the free media service, tokbox can put ads in my app, and I have to share an unknown portion of the app revenue with tokbox, is this correct?
- iansmall 16y ago
  Yes. And no. 1) is pretty straightforward, and I think you understand it correctly. Obviously, we're not currently serving ads, and it's not even on the "to do" list at the moment. Should we decide to put it on the list, there's about 79 different ways we could do it; it would presumably be in our interest to choose an approach that works well for our developer partners. With respect to (2), your description is incomplete; perhaps you missed the key phrase that demonstrates our real intent. That phrase, at the beginning of the term you're referencing, says "In cases where the (video chat service) is the primary basis of the advertising sale..."; only in those cases are we interested in compensation. You summarized this as "I have to share an unknown portion of the app revenue with tokbox". That is untrue. We make no claim whatsoever to "app revenues" (which could presumably include things like premium service subscription fees, membership fees, usage fees, etc.). With respect to ad revenues, we are only interested in ads where the video chat is the primary basis of the sale. For instance, if you build a dating site, or a gaming site, or a recruiting site that includes video chat as a face-to-face communication channel that augments the underlying activity, and the underlying activity is the basis for the advertising, we're not interested. But at the other extreme, if you take OpenTok, slap a logo and 18 lines of JavaScript around the service in order to build a vanilla video chat service, and then sell advertising on top of that, then yes, we may want to talk about that. Bottom line: we're not in the business of trying to trap you or trick you. Frankly, it's not a business model that scales, and it never has been. We're doing our best to make something pretty cool available to you, at a pretty darned aggressive price point (ie. free), in the hopes that you will build pretty cool apps and together we can change the web. We're interested in seeing as many cool apps out there as we possibly can. And yes, we're also protecting ourselves from being someone's patsy. You would too, were you in our shoes.
  - mewmewmew 16y ago
    thanks a lot for the detailed clarifications, I have a much better view on opentok now.

mewmewmew 16y ago

thanks for the prompt answer! could you explain the following from your terms (http://www.tokbox.com/legal/termsofservice http://www.tokbox.com/legal/termsofservice): 1. tokbox reserves the right to put ads within the videos: "TokBox retains the exclusive right to include and to sell advertising, promotions and sponsorships in the Service that is displayed on Your Websites" 2. also, if I create an opentok app, andd put ads in my website, I have to share the ad revenue with tokox: "For example, you may sell sponsorships or branding in areas around the live video streams, provided that you and Tokbox agree in advance on appropriate compensation to be paid to TokBox." in summary, in return for the free media service, tokbox can put ads in my app, and I have to share an unknown portion of the app revenue with tokbox, is this correct?

iansmall 16y ago
Yes. And no. 1) is pretty straightforward, and I think you understand it correctly. Obviously, we're not currently serving ads, and it's not even on the "to do" list at the moment. Should we decide to put it on the list, there's about 79 different ways we could do it; it would presumably be in our interest to choose an approach that works well for our developer partners. With respect to (2), your description is incomplete; perhaps you missed the key phrase that demonstrates our real intent. That phrase, at the beginning of the term you're referencing, says "In cases where the (video chat service) is the primary basis of the advertising sale..."; only in those cases are we interested in compensation. You summarized this as "I have to share an unknown portion of the app revenue with tokbox". That is untrue. We make no claim whatsoever to "app revenues" (which could presumably include things like premium service subscription fees, membership fees, usage fees, etc.). With respect to ad revenues, we are only interested in ads where the video chat is the primary basis of the sale. For instance, if you build a dating site, or a gaming site, or a recruiting site that includes video chat as a face-to-face communication channel that augments the underlying activity, and the underlying activity is the basis for the advertising, we're not interested. But at the other extreme, if you take OpenTok, slap a logo and 18 lines of JavaScript around the service in order to build a vanilla video chat service, and then sell advertising on top of that, then yes, we may want to talk about that. Bottom line: we're not in the business of trying to trap you or trick you. Frankly, it's not a business model that scales, and it never has been. We're doing our best to make something pretty cool available to you, at a pretty darned aggressive price point (ie. free), in the hopes that you will build pretty cool apps and together we can change the web. We're interested in seeing as many cool apps out there as we possibly can. And yes, we're also protecting ourselves from being someone's patsy. You would too, were you in our shoes.
- mewmewmew 16y ago
  thanks a lot for the detailed clarifications, I have a much better view on opentok now.