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What Is a Video API?

This article was updated on January 25, 2022

Wondering if you should use a video API instead of an off-the-shelf turnkey solution to connect with your customers? Stop wondering. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥.

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Because ask yourself: Am I just connecting with my customers, or am I building experiences?

Sure, the second one’s not easy. But if you want to build a branded, personal, interactive customer experience—one that involves users seeing other people and/or content—a video API is your only choice.

First things first, though: What is a video API? 

It’s:

  • A platform for integrating live video into your website and/or mobile app
  • Built on the open WebRTC standards used by all modern web browsers and billions of devices

And if it’s any good, it’s got:

  • Security, recording, conferencing, broadcasting, analytics, and other features
  • Developer tools and enterprise-grade services and support

Who uses them to do what? 

Doctors provide consultations and teachers provide lessons. Financial advisors spot trends and field-service techs spot damage. Companies offer webinars and singles offer each other. Teams collaborate. Virtual classes commence. Survivors and addicts share support. Friends do happy hours. Influencers give interactive talks. Brands demo products.

Unlike turnkey solutions, though, you’ve got to build with video APIs. 

No vision for a branded, personal experience? No developer?

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The 2021 Video Trends Report: Third Edition
Video engagement exploded in 2020. Our data indicates that the higher levels of video engagement are now the new normal—everywhere.

Yikes. You’re in a pickle.

But if you want to build an app, adding video won’t be the tricky part. Getting your client connected to their customer, putting all of the customer’s information in front of your client, and more—that’s the tricky part.

Once you get past all that, you can expect adding a video API to not only be the easy part and meet your expectations, but to surprise you, too.

That’s what happened to the healthcare companies who—already using video APIs to handle some 2,000 virtual visits per year—discovered during the pandemic that they were actually equipped to handle that many virtual visits per day.

Meanwhile, one important subsector wasn’t equipped for this surge: K–12 education. Why? Because they relied on off-the-shelf, turnkey video solutions whose one-size-fits-all design can’t create terrific experiences for students.

That’s what a video API is—a creator of terrific experiences. 

And those experiences won’t just help you realize a nice ROI. 

They’ll help you realize a virtually unlimited ROI by turning your customers into brand advocates who can’t get enough.

Click here to learn more about creating richer customer experiences with live, interactive video sessions: The Vonage Video API.

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