TokBox was a

PaaS Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a cloud computing service model where users provision, instantiate, run and manage a modular bundle of a computing platform and applications, w ...

(Platform as a Service) company that provided hosted infrastructure,

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

s and tools required to deliver enterprise-grade

WebRTC WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication and ...

capabilities. It did so primarily through its proprietary OpenTok video platform for commercial application. TokBox was founded by Serge Faguet and Ron Hose. Headquartered in the SOMA (South of Market) district in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, CA. TokBox was acquired by Telefónica Digital, a subsidiary of

Telefónica , S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company with registered office and headquarters located in two different places, both in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the ...

, in October 2012.

Developer resources

Server SDKs

Server SDKs: OpenTok's server SDKs wrap the OpenTok REST

, and let developers securely generate tokens for their OpenTok applications. Officially supported libraries include:

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

. Community supported and created libraries include: Python,

Ruby On Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pa ...

.NET The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...

, Node.js,

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

, Golang.

Client libraries

Client Libraries: OpenTok's

client libraries enable video communications on a client platform. Officially supported libraries include:

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and Android. Community supported and created libraries include: PhoneGap and

Titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

Developer outreach

TokBox has a long history of active engagement with the developer community. It has sponsored numerous

hackathon A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of '' hacking'' and ''marathon'') is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 h ...

s since 2010 such as

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

Disrupt Hackathon, API Hack Day and Music Hack Day. PennApps, one of the largest of such events, takes place on

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

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 Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

with no prior

experience built Classity to showcase real-time lectures on the web and won the “Best Use of TokBox API” award.

History

2007

* August: Series A funding from Sequoia Capital * October: Launched www.tokbox.com * 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 Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

* September: Launched the TokBox platform/ API

2009

Added document collaboration tool—

Etherpad Etherpad (previously known as EtherPad) is an open-source, web-based collaborative real-time editor, allowing authors to simultaneously edit a text document, and see all of the participants' edits in real-time, with the ability to display each ...

(now owned by Google)

2010

* January: Rolled out its first set of paid features at $9.99 per month. * November: Series C Funding from

DAG Ventures DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. DAG Ventures works with startups in providing early stage and growth stage funding. Since its founding in 2004, by Tom Goodrich and John Cadeddu, the firm has backe ...

, Bain Capital Ventures and Sequoia Capital * November: Announced the OpenTok API

2011

* February: TokBox announced that as of April 5, 2011, they would be discontinuing the TokBox video chat and video conferencing service to focus solely on their API, OpenTok.

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 CEO's new restructuring plan. None of the original founders are currently with TokBox.

References

External links

TokBox Home Page
({{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080930130352/http://www.tokbox.com/ , date=2008-09-30 ) AIM (software) clients Chat websites Instant messaging MacOS instant messaging clients Online chat Teleconferencing Telefónica Videotelephony Web conferencing WebRTC Windows instant messaging clients Yahoo! instant messaging clients Bain Capital companies