The start of a new year is generally a time for looking forward and planning things to come. We're certainly doing that at Vonage, and are very much focused on delivering a successful 2022 for our customers, developers, and the whole Vonage family.
This time of year can also be a time of reflection. Last year was challenging for many reasons, and in some ways was a year many people would rather forget. That shouldn't mean we forget the high points and successes, so in this post we want to cover a few of the highlights from Q4 of 2021.
Vonage Video Express
A huge part of our mission at Vonage is delivering an awesome experience for the developers who use Vonage's products and services. One aspect of that mission is providing tools that can get you up and running super-quickly. As the name suggests, Vonage Video Express does exactly that. Video Express is a quick and easy way of integrating multiparty video into your web applications. In this article Dwane, our JavaScript Developer Advocate, gives you the low-down on what Vonage Video Express is and why it's so awesome!
Multiparty video conversation graphic
Video Express is a great solution for developing that MVP quickly and with the minimum of fuss, or for integrating video into an existing application. We're excited to see what you're going to build with it. If you decide to use Vonage Video Express for your next project, let us know!
Looking for inspiration? Then check out this tutorial by Vonage Solutions Engineers Enrico and Javier, where they'll walk you through building a Multiparty Video Application with Node, React JS, and Vonage Video Express.
Vonage AI studio
Something else we're super excited about is the Vonage AI studio. The Vonage AI studio is essentially a Low-code/No-code conversation designer that empowers developers and non-developers alike to design, create, and deploy customer engagement applications that operate in natural language.
In this article Binoy Chemmagate, Senior Product Manager for Vonage Video API, provides an overview of the Vonage AI studio.
For a deeper dive into its capabilities, including a demonstration of using the Vonage AI studio to create a virtual assistant, add this video cast to your watch list. Developer Advocate Cory discusses the Vonage AI studio with Luisa Onnebrink, an AI Conversation Designer at Vonage. Luisa then showcases how to create a virtual assistant using the Vonage AI Studio.
Screenshot of Vonage AI Studio workflow
We think that there is incredible potential in this platform for developing all kinds of applications and products. If you were considering exploring conversational AI but were concerned about the potential complexity, then you should definitely give the Vonage AI studio a try. It's currently in Preview Mode, but you can request early access here.
10DLC Guidelines
Delivering a better experience for developers isn't always about building new tools and features. It can also be about helping to deal with external changes in the wider ecosystem. One example of this has been the new regulatory requirements in the US around using 10-digit Long Codes for business text messaging. These changes have been made for understandable reasons, but dealing with regulatory changes that directly impact your applications can be confusing and frustrating. In this post, our Community Manager, Caroline, tells you exactly what you need to know about 10DLC, and its implications for sending business SMS messages via your applications.
Payments over the Phone
Conversational Commerce has been a huge growth area in recent years and is set for even more rapid growth this year and into the future. Of course, a key aspect of leveraging this trend is the ability to accept payments from customers. Payments over the Phone allows you to securely charge payment cards using the Vonage Voice API. Here, our Developer Advocate, Abdul, outlines how Payments over the Phone now supports Multi-currency payments.
Messages API Improvements, including New WhatsApp Capabilities
One much anticipated development in Q4 of last year was the v1 release of the Vonage Messages API. This release brought numerous improvements to the API. A couple of the features we're most excited about are the WhatsApp List Messaging and Reply Button capabilities. These features are perfectly suited to conversational commerce use-cases.
WhatsApp stickers graphic
Customer communications can also be fun and playful! Check out this post about provisioning and sending WhatsApp stickers with the Vonage APIs.
That's just a small selection of our highlights from the end of last year. There's plenty more in the pipeline for 2022, so watch this space!
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