Blog
Building voice, instant messaging and Twitter applications in the cloud
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
This post is part of the
Who's @ Google I/O
, a series of blog posts that give a closer look at developers who'll be speaking or demoing at
Google I/O
. This guest post is written by Adam Kalsey, Developer Evangelist at Voxeo Developer Network, who will be demoing as part of the
Developer Sandbox
.
Connecting to your customers via voice, SMS, or even IM allows you to reach them when they aren't at their desks. These real-time communications mediums are skyrocketing in usage and ubiquity, as what is more ubiquitous than the phone? Building an application that works over the phone or instant messaging is easier than you think.
Telephony has traditionally required complicated hardware and software or specialized programming languages. In recent years, however, web programming tools and models ranging from VoiceXML to web services APIs have made it easy for any developer to create communications services.
Companies for years have been providing customer self-service applications as
Interactive Voice Response
(IVR) systems as a way of boosting customer satisfaction while cutting service costs. These techniques and tools are starting to make their way into other mediums and at the same time are coming down in price, making them accessible to a whole new class of developers. This is leading to some great innovation as developers find creative ways to weave phones and text into their applications.
It's not just voice. A rising percentage of the population is just as likely to communicate over text messaging, IM, and social networks as they are to pick up the phone. APIs and customer-self service systems must adapt to the preferences of the customers they want to help. Over the next decade, 50% of the automated communications that today happens over the telephone will shift to other mediums. It's important for the applications you develop to serve your customers to
be available on the networks they choose to use.
Here's how an IVR application might work over instant messaging. Your company provides a Jabber IM address for people to contact you. Any of your customers using Google Talk can strike up a conversation. Your code intercepts their message and routes it to the right department based on the keywords used in the chat. Perhaps you even respond off hours letting people know when your agents are available or answer common questions automatically from a knowledge base.
Have you ever wanted your Google Talk number to be answered by your code? When your friends call, you'd like to pick it up, and when telemarketers call, you’d like it to go straight to voicemail. In addition to accepting calls, your application can make calls, sending appointment reminders or triggering alerts using only a few lines of code. You can even set the caller ID of the outbound call to your Google Voice number so that return calls come to you.
To demonstrate how easy it is for a developer to weave voice and text into their application, lets look at a sample application running on our
Tropo cloud communications platform
.
We've created a mashup for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) schedules so you can see when the next train is due to arrive at the station of your choice. Call or SMS (407) 374-9954 or send an IM to bartdemo@tropo.im with Google Talk to try it. You can even talk to @tropobart on Twitter. Tropo treats Twitter as an IM network, sending all @mentions to your application just like an instant message would be.
Tropo works by converting phone calls, IMs, and text messages to API calls that your code works with. An incoming call or message is delivered to your code and your code tells Tropo what to say back.
The
code behind this
can sit in our cloud or on the web server of your choice, including
Google App Engine
. Other
sample applications are available
covering everything from simple games to directory assistance, to checking into
Foursquare
.
Real-time communications APIs for voice allow you to give instructions to the phone system and IM networks to answer or make calls, accept text messages, interact with your users using speech synthesis and speech recognition, set up conferences, or just about anything else you can think of and mash it up with Google technologies, like this
Wave robot that adds conference calls
to any Wave.
To learn more about building voice and text applications and the real-time communications APIs that are available to you, visit Voxeo in the Google I/O
Developer Sandbox
or visit the
Voxeo blog
and
Tropo blog
.
Posted by Adam Kalsey, Developer Evangelist at Voxeo Developer Network
Labels
#freeandopen
#GooglePlay #AndroidDevStory #PlayStore #DeveloperConsole #StoreListingExperiments
#io12
#io13
#io14
#io15
#io16
#io2012
#io2013
#io2014
+1
20% project
3d
about.com
accessibility
Administrative APIs
AdMob
Ads
adsense
advogato
africa
agpl
ajax
ajax apis
ajax search
ajax search books news apis
all for good
amarok
analytics
android
Android Studio
android wear
apache
api
apis
apis console
apis explorer
apis. charts
app engine
app indexing
app indexing api
App Invites
apple
apps
apps script
asia
atom publishing protocol
Auth
authentication
authsub
awards
axsjax
barcodes
beacon
beacons
bespin
best practices
bigquery
blogger
book search
books API
bootcamp
browser
building ajax apps
buzz
c++
caja
caldav
calendar
camino
campfire one
caption
cardboard
CardDAV
cast
chinese
chrome
chrome apps
chrome dev summit
chrome devtools
chrome experiment
chrome extensions
chrome os
chrome web store
chromecast
chromium
chronoscope
cifs
classes
classroom api
client libraries
closure tools
cloud
cloud datastore
cloud platform
cloud portability
cloud services
cloud sql
cloud storage
cms
CocoaPods
code for educators
code jam
code review
code-in
codeedu
coffee with a googler
collada
commerce
community
compression
compressorhead
computing heritage
conferences
contacts api
contest
contextual gadgets
conversations
couchdb
countdown to I/O 2012
courses
creative commons
cricket
crisis response
cryptography
css
css3
custom search
custom search api
danish linux forum
dart
datastore
design
devart
developer
developer expert
developers
developers. meetup
devfest
devfest developer chrome maps social wave apps
discovery service
django
dns
docs
documentation
documents list api
dojo
doodles
dot net
doubleclick
dreamweaver
Drive
drupal
eclipse
eclipsecon
eddystone
education
email
EMEA
enterprise
event
events
evolution
execution api
extensions
faster web
featured
feeds
finance
Firebase
Firebase Analytics
Firebase Cloud Messaging
firebug
firefox
firevox
fitness
font api
fosdem
freebsd
freenet
Fridaygram
fusion tables
gadgets
games
gcc
GDA
gdata
gdd07
gdd08
gdd09
GDD11
GDE
gdg
gdl
gdl weekly
gears
geo
geolocation
geoserver
getpaid
ghop
git
github
gmail
Gmail APIs
gnome
gnome women's summer outreach program
Go
goo.gl
Google
Google APIs
google apps
google apps api
google apps for your domain
google apps marketplace
google buzz
google cast
google chart api
google checkout
google chrome
Google Cloud Messaging
google cloud storage
google code
google code project hosting
google code search
google code university
google compute engine
google data apis
google data protocol
google developer day
google developer days
Google Developers Academy
Google Developers Live
Google Developers site
Google Developers University Consortium
google docs
google doctype
Google Drive
google earth
google fit
Google Fonts
google friend connect
google gadgets
google gears
google grants
google health
Google I/O
Google Identity Platform
google io
google mashup editor
Google Noto fonts
google play services
Google Science Fair
Google sheets
Google Spreadsheets API
google storage
google summer of code
Google tech talk
google technoloy user groups
google tv
google visualization api
google wallet
Google Wave
google web elements
google web toolkit
google.org
google+
googlecast
googleio
googlenew
googlewebelements googleio
GPE
green linux
gsoc
gtags
gtug
guest post
guice
gulp
GWSOP
gwt
hackathon
hacking
hackthon
hangouts
haproxy
hg
hibernate
howto
hpux
html
html5
I/O Extended
I/O Live
ical
identity
ietf
ignite
igoogle
iguanas
iiw
image search
Imara
in-app payments
internationalization
internet explorer
internet of things
interviews
ios
iOS SDK
ipad
iphone
israel
jaiku
java
javascript
jetpack
joomla
joomladayus2007
joomladayusa
karaoke
KDE
KDE 4.0
kernel
kernel summit
khronos
kids
kml
korean
labs
latitude
lca
lessons
licenses
linux
linux foundation
linux summit
linux virtual server
linuxconf eu
LoCo
london
mac
MacFuse
machine learning
maps
maps apis
Marketplace
material design
MDL
meetup
mercurial
MIT CSAIL
mobile
mod_pagespeed
Moderator
MOOC
mozilla
mylar
myspace
MySQL
mythtv
named
narratives
native client
nearby
netbsd
non-profit
nonsense
nosql
notifications
nss
O3D
oauth
OAuth playground
objective-c
OCaml
ocr
ODF
oha
OOXML
open data
open source
open source blog
open web
openajax alliance
opengl
openid
opensocial
openssh
openssl
oreilly
orkut
oscon
oscon2007
osi
oss devs
ossjam
osx
pactester
page speed
payments
performance
phone
photos
picasa
picasa web
places API
play services
playground
plone
plone sprint
podcast
polymer
portugal
posix
PowerMeter API
prediction api
preview
programming
project hosting
Project Loon
Project Tango
proximity
pubsubhubbub
py3k
python
python sprint
rails
random hacks of kindness
reader
Remote Config
research
result snippets
rhino
salesforce
samba
sandbox
scalability
screencast
sdk
search
security
service worker
Sheets API
shindig
shopping
sidewiki
sign-in
silverstripe
sitemaps
sites api
sixapart
sketchup
Smart Lock for Passwords
soap search api
soc
social
social graph
solaris
souders
spa2007
spdy
speakers
speed
speed tracer
standards
startup
storage
Street View
student programs
students
stuff
subscribed links
subversion
summer of code
SVG
sxsw
syndication
tasks API
templates
testing
themes
tool
tools
topp
training
tranparency
transit
translate
tutorials
tv
ubiquitous computing
ubiquity
ubucon
ubuntu
Udacity
unit test
unix
video
videos
Vim
virtual keyboard
virtual reality
visualization
VR
Wearables
web animations api
web components
web designer
web exponents
web fonts
web performance
web platform docs
webfonts
webgl
webmaster
WebP
website optimizer
weekly roundup
WhiteHouse.gov
Who's at Google I/O
windows
windows programming
Winter of Code
wtm
xauth
yahoo
youtube
zlib
zurich
ZXing
Archive
2016
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2005
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Subscribe
Google
on
Follow @googledevs
Visit
Google Developers
for docs, event info, and more.
