Andrew Trice

Wednesday September 26, 2007

Did you just call my phone from your Flex application?

Yep, I did. :) You heard it. I just made a telephone call though a Flex application. New ground is being broken in the RIA industry as I write this. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the pre-release version of the Ribbit phone component, and I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed. Ribbit is basically an API that allows VoIP telecommunication delivered through Flash/Flex applications.

The convergence of RIA and telecommunications opens up an entirely new realm for RIAs in general. Imagine a call center application with a single point of distribution, or imagine doing a web search for restaurants in your area, and being able to call them directly just by clicking on a link... Then lets take it to the next level and add geographic information to the equation; You can now search the web, find a place on a map, and call that place without anything more than a few mouse clicks.

Another idea with geographic information and communication in mind is the ability to track people (for business purposes, no big brother), and be in communication with them at any time. A "dispatch" application for a fleet could be created. From there, you could look at a map and be able to click on a person to find their current location, and to call them directly.

I put together a simple proof of concept that does just this. Here's a screenshot and a baisc description, however I won't be making this one public b/c I don't want to be inundated with phone calls from random people all the time. :) I used ESRI's Flex 2 beta mapping component for the map visualization. All the data is hard coded in this demo application, but this could easily be modified to receive real time data with FDS/LCDS. The only requirement to get this working on ANY computer is that the computer has a working sound card and microphone.... that's it.



The application controls are very simple. You can click and drag to pan around the large vector map or on the smaller, satellite map. If you click on a name in the messengers list, that person/marker will be centered in the map.

You can click on a marker on the map, or a name in the “messengers” list. Once clicked, that name will be set as the active person in the “Ribbit Phone!” window, so that you can call them. If there is already an active call, the new name will not be set. All of the overlay windows can be moved around the application canvas area simply by clicking on the header and dragging. I'll try to get a video capture of the application up here soon, but I make no guarantees.

It is, without a doubt, an exciting time to be involved in the RIA space. I believe that we will continue to see ideas such as this expanded upon and new ground will be broken every day.
Enjoy!