Flash based VOIP is finally here

I just saw one of the greatest demos I've ever seen built on the Flash platform. A company called Ribbit showed a phone component today built in Flex and soon to be available to developers on a prerelease basis. The Ribbit component is nothing short of astonishing. It runs soley on the Flash Player, so requires no download of any kind and supports full telephone capabilities. As the blog post today notes:

The RibbitPhone Component will give Rich internet application developers the ability to make and receive calls, record/send and receive voicemail, as well as add and manage contacts.

The demo they showed was part Grand Central and part Skype but 100% Flex and a full featured communication suite. The widget allows you to dial any phone and answer calls to your phone right from the browser. As part of the service you can specify a number to dial from which then shows up on the caller id of the person you're dialing. There is a messaging feature built into the application so that anyone can call your number and it will ring both on your phone as well as inside the browser application. You can answer it from the app and use a microphone to talk. If you aren't there, the system tracks your messages so you can see a list of them and play them back individually. It sounds like they'll also be offering a transcribing service so you can get an email with both the sound file attached and a text version of the message.

They're planning to release a Flex component with all of the functionality for free to developers so that anyone can embed it on their blog and get telephone support inside the browser. They're announcing a developer program today because the company is excited about enabling developers to take their RIAs to the next level. They are currently accepting applications to the prerelease program which they'll announce on August 27th. The actual component will go out to developers on the 3rd of September and then exactly a month later they will release the component to the general public. Documentation is available on the site right now for people who want a head start.

My jaw is still on the floor after seeing this in action. Being able to incorporate this functionality into a browser app is going to be game changing and people at Skype should be very afraid. With Flash 9 penetration at around 92%, and absolutely no download required to make this work, this will be the most accessible telephone application ever and the barrier to entry is almost nothing. I can't wait for this to be released to the public and then to see what developers do with it.

More info from Rob Abbott who is principle user experience on the project.