Last week, I explored the RCS re-invigoration due to the Google announcement of RCS support. And given that the GSMA historically has supported RCS heavily, and anything involving Google would get huge interest and press, it comes as no surprise that we saw quite of bit of hype about RCS coming out of the GSMA during MWC.

However, also remember we saw much hype in 2012 when Joyn, the GSMA branding of RCS, was announced.  Remember, this was the time when the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook and other instant messaging smartphone apps were starting to very seriously erode texting revenues.  So the GSMA and service provider response was to announce something (that already existed!) evoking joining and interacting with a community that went across service provider boundaries.  It didn’t say what it did; it just said “join.”  But the real world isn’t a movie and the “build it and they will come” aspect of Joyn didn’t work out.  Those other non-Joyn services already did messaging very well, so the Joyn / RCS value was scant.  The hype quickly died down.

Since that time, WebRTC technology has also entered the fray since the days the RCS/Joyn specs were completed.  There are many service providers looking at WebRTC as well, which would enable many of the same kinds of values as RCS provides.  It is still too early to tell how WebRTC will impact RCS, but it seems destined to.