TokBox

TokBox Inc
Type of business Private
Type of site
Video Conferencing
Headquarters San Francisco, California, California
Owner Telefónica Digital a subsidiary of Telefónica
Founder(s) Serge Faguet
Ron Hose
Key people Scott Lomond, CEO
Badri Rajaseker, CTO
Melih Onvural, Director of Product Management
Michael Kelleher, Director of Business Analytics
Ian Small, Chairman of the Board
Website www.tokbox.com
Alexa rank Positive decrease 58,996 (April 2014)[1]

TokBox is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) company that provides hosted infrastructure, APIs and tools required to deliver enterprise-grade WebRTC capabilities. It does so primarily through its proprietary OpenTok video platform for commercial application.[2][3]

TokBox was founded by entrepreneurs Serge Faguet and Ron Hose and was backed by Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, DAG Ventures, and Youniversity Ventures. As of November 2010, TokBox had raised $26 million in series A and B and C funding.[3] Headquartered in the SOMA (South of Market) district in San Francisco, CA. TokBox was acquired by Telefónica Digital, a subsidiary of Telefónica, in October 2012.[4]

Developer Resources

Server SDKs

Server SDKs: OpenTok’s server SDKs wrap the OpenTok REST API, and let developers securely generate tokens for their OpenTok applications. Officially supported libraries include: Java and PHP. Community supported and created libraries include: Python, Ruby On Rails, .NET, Node.js, Perl, Golang.[5]

Client Libraries

Client Libraries: OpenTok's WebRTC client libraries enable video communications on a client platform. Officially supported libraries include: Javascript, iOS and Android. Community supported and created libraries include: PhoneGap and Titanium.[6]

Developer Outreach

TokBox has a long history of active engagement with the developer community. It has sponsored numerous hackathons since 2010 such as TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon,[7] API Hack Day[8] and Music Hack Day[9]

PennApps, one of the largest of such events, takes place on University of Pennsylvania campus every semester. Over a thousand students from around the world competed in the September, 2013 edition of PennApps. Four sophomore students from Carnegie Mellon University with no prior hackathon experience built Classity to showcase real-time lectures on the web and won the “Best Use of TokBox API” award.[10]

History

2007

August – Series A funding from Sequoia Capital[11]
October – Launched www.tokbox.com [12]
November – Launched multi-party chat and partnership with Meebo

2008

April – TokBox Version 2 launched
July – Series B Funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Sequoia Capital [13]
September – Launched the TokBox platform/ API

2009

Added document collaboration tool—Etherpad (now owned by Google)

2010

January — rolled out its first set of paid features--$9.99 per month.

November – Series C Funding from DAG Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and Sequoia Capital[14]
November — announced the OpenTok API

2011

February — TokBox announced that as of April 5, 2011 they will be discontinuing the TokBox video chat and video conferencing service to focus solely on their API, OpenTok.[15]

Controversy

TokBox was the subject of controversy when 50% of their engineering staff was fired in July 2009. This happened around the time TokBox changed CEOs. The VP of Marketing is stated as saying the firings were part of the CEOs new restructuring plan. None of the original founders are currently with TokBox.[16]

References

  1. "Tokbox.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
  2. Cohen, A.D. (2014). Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. Longman applied linguistics. Taylor & Francis. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-317-86117-1.
  3. 1 2 "TokBox - crunchbase".
  4. Lunden, Ingrid. "Telefonica Digital Buys Video Chat Platform TokBox, An Airtime For The Rest Of Us".
  5. "OpenTok Server SDKs".
  6. "OpenTok Client SDKs".
  7. Lardinois, Frederic. "Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon Team Wants To Build A WebRTC-Based Pandora For Exercise".
  8. "API Hack Day Chicago - TokBox Blog". 16 May 2011.
  9. http://sf.musichackday.org/2013/index.php?page=Main+page/
  10. "PennApps XV".
  11. "TokBox Raises $10 Million - PE Hub". PE Hub. 2008-08-07. Retrieved 2017-10-27.
  12. "Wayback Machine". 2007-07-15. Retrieved 2017-10-27.
  13. Kincaid, Jason. "Video Chat Service TokBox Raises $10 Million From Bain". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-10-27.
  14. "TokBox raises $12M to jam Skype into your web browser | VentureBeat". venturebeat.com. Retrieved 2017-10-27.
  15. "Breaking up is hard to do - TokBox Blog". 8 February 2011.
  16. Kincaid, Jason. "TokBox Fires 50% Of Engineering Team, All Founders Gone". TechCrunch.

Further reading

  • Wankel, C. (2011). Streaming Media Delivery in Higher Education: Methods and Outcomes: Methods and Outcomes. Advances in Higher Education and Professional Development:. IGI Global. pp. 277– . ISBN 978-1-60960-801-9. (subscription required)
  • Muchmore, Michael (July 25, 2008). "TokBox AIR". PC Magazine. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  • Alonso, Santiago Millán (June 5, 2016). "Telefónica acelera el avance de TokBox, su filial de comunicaciones visuales". Cinco Días (in Spanish). Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  • Tong, Brian (March 31, 2010). "Tokbox gets super-sized group video meetings". CNET. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  • Nicole, Kristen (July 2, 2008). "TokBox Brings Video to Facebook IM Chat". Mashable. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
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