Facebook to target IM market and drive XMPP?

Chat is not a new innovation in customer service. IKEA has it, travel agencies have it, several others have it.
There is nothing as such new in the fact that Facebook has it. And the short-term benefits to FB are obvious.

Facebook’s customer-service department has been quietly testing a Salesforce-powered system that lets businesses contact it over Facebook Chat rather than with a phone call. This gives merchants a quick and convenient way to get answers while they run their businesses, and it keeps call-center costs down for Facebook.

But Facebook is a powerful force and attracting small businesses to it.
Let's now remember that Facebook chat is based on XMPP. Not the usual XMPP service, but any XMPP client can in theory be used as a Facebook chat client.

Facebook Chat should be compatible with every XMPP client, but is not a full XMPP server. It should be thought of as a proxy into the world of Facebook Chat on www.facebook.com. As a result, it has several behaviors that differ slightly from what you would expect from a traditional XMPP service...

Therefore, the truly interesting question is what is waiting around the corner?
Will Facebook be allowing its users (consumers) to directly connect with advertisers over chat?
Let's note that today, this seems not the primary target of FB chat. This by judging what FB says of chat in the above. But technically it could be done.

For the business using the FB-provided service could in principle mean enhanced opportunities to get consumer attention. For example, the service use case of "chat or video chat with a celebrity" is a known one.

The scenario would also call for some business analysis because one could argue that FB might be bypassed and that it is in Facebook's interest to remain somehow between the advertiser and the consumer, to monetise the service in the right way.
However, if this happens, then this would be a great boost for XMPP and openness in instant messaging.

Let's remember that also Google Talk is based on XMPP.

Is this the way how IM market finally opens up? The IM in principle would be "open" but in reality dictated by the Big Internet Players?

The Firefox WebRTC demo video is a cool one

The Firefox video showing new ways to share images, videos, files or whatever is just cool. 
It all integrates in one smooth user experience, bringing your friends and colleagues close.

It is easy to see how systems based on WebRTC will challenge current proprietary players.
And once again, we will see incumbents trying to slow down evolution or even stop it.
They will be working hard to move the battlefied to other areas where proprietary elements come to play. Exciting times ahead.

WebRTC: an enabler for embedded devices?

The Internet of Things calls for intelligent peripherals. It would be nice even low-cost devices would support CoIP. Technologically, the issue is not so much about implementation capability. Of course any cost penalty is highly unwanted.
However, I would argue that the most important factor here is the market fragmentation in CoIP standards implementation. There is uncertainty of standards to be supported and fear of their incompatibility and cost of possibly exhaustive testing.
Now it will be interesting to see if WebRTC will change things.
Of course implementing basic underlying technologies required by WebRTC takes time and effort.
But at least Plantronics will be doing some cool things. 

Wearables is a natural first step. But a dynamic CoIP interoperability and capability in e.g. a smart sensor would have certainly a lot of use cases.
Waiting eagerly for news from hardware players.