Nowadays, it is difficult to imagine our life without video and online broadcasts. A large number of users of various services prefer to receive information about the product from video and online broadcasts. At the same time, buyers who can watch a video about a product choose the direction of just such a product.

It is based on such statistics that a large number of companies face the need to develop their applications for online broadcasts and video. These applications are created either for their broadcasts or integration with other major services.

When choosing a team to develop such applications, you can face many difficulties, because there are not many experienced developers who have a lot of experience and sufficient skills in such projects. 

You don’t want to create a live streaming app that is based on assumptions. Instead, you’ll want to learn the actual needs and opinions of users who will be using the app. Plan and hold interviews with the users to identify challenges early on. 

The early feedback will set you on the right path when building the live app. Besides, you may already secure your first group of beta users. 

Before you start building a live streaming app, you’ll need to know which types it belongs to. Here are 3 common types of live-streaming apps.

Live Broadcasting Apps

Live broadcasting apps are arguably the most popular type of live-streaming apps. The app allows users to broadcast live recordings of videos and sounds to others who have access to the stream. These apps have given birth to scores of internet influencers and celebrities.

Popular live broadcasting apps are Twitch, YouTube Live, Livestream, and Periscope.

Audio Streaming

Take video out of the picture, and you’ll have an audio streaming app. With an audio streaming app, you get to listen to audio that is transmitted over the internet in real-time. 

Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music belong to this category.

Video On Demand Streaming

This type of live streaming app allows users to schedule and watch their favorite TV shows online as and when they wish.

Common VoD apps are Hulu, YouTube TV, and Amazon Prime Video.

After all, such projects always have certain criteria for their implementation. The development of such applications is much more complex than the development of other applications. In addition, there are several specific requirements, without which such applications will not be able to perform all their functions fully.

One of the main prerequisites for these apps is the quality of your videos. After all, your users can be located in different parts of the world, have access to the Internet of different quality. It is for such tasks that video streaming is used. This technology helps to improve the quality and speed of video transmission, thus you will allow watching your videos to users with a good connection, as well as with a bad one.

Another important factor is the accessibility of your videos. These are the devices from which your users can watch your videos. Indeed, in our time, many people use their smartphones and tablets more than laptops and computers in everyday life. And when it comes to mobile devices, remember that they have different platforms. Thus, you will need to have apps for both IOS and Android. This will allow you to reach a wider audience.

When planning your video streaming application, remember to use analytics for your videos. This feature will give you the ability to understand your viewers’ engagement, activity, and behavior.

A good feature for this would be the creation of personalized user profiles that will transfer user data to you the way you want. At the same time, it will create convenience for the user, because they can insist their preferences on the toolbar reserved for this. Do not forget about the search box, with which users can search for the information they need, and you can see what exactly they are interested in.

If your content is aimed at paid videos, subscriptions, then you should look towards online payment modules. You can use pay-per-view, monthly subscriptions, and similar methods to monetize your videos.

Naturally, there is little point in developing your payment service for every company. You should look towards integration with other major services. These integrations make your users’ payments safer, faster, and more reliable.

Also, a good company that you choose to develop your application will need to analyze your future content. This will make it easier for you to choose a payment method for your users.

Social media integration will be another benefit for you. Videos have very high ratings on social media, much higher than images or text. With these integrations, you can collect more feedback on your streams and videos, and can also announce future streams.

Another monetization option for you would be to use third-party advertising services. Statistics have shown that more than half of users are willing to watch ads in exchange for a reduced subscription fee or if it is free. This way, you can create several options for your users to view your videos, where they will either pay for your videos or watch ads.

The company that will develop the application for you will need to help you properly integrate your ad into the video. After all, the amount of your profit and the quality of advertising will depend on where the advertisement will be placed.

Also, before starting live streaming app development, you will need to understand which markets you will be targeting more. The platform on which you place more emphasis will depend on this. After all, smartphones based on IOS are more popular in Western Europe and North America. At the same time, Android smartphones are more popular in Asian countries.

The cost of developing your application will also depend on this. It seems to many that development for the IOS platform is more costly and resource-intensive, but this is not at all the case. The bottom line is that there is only one official programming language for developing IOS applications, which all developers write. At the same time, Android has a huge number of its variations, and hence different programming languages ​​that can be used to write applications for this platform. This is what can complicate and make more expensive the development of applications for a given operating system.

Probably, after that, you will decide to create an application only for IOS, but this may be your mistake because the markets in which smartphones on this platform are leading have the largest number of residents who can potentially become your customers. Another argument for developing Android apps is the flexibility to customize and upgrade them.

Of course, you need to count on your app to be hugely popular if done right, but you should talk with your developers about integrating with third-party video streaming services to increase your reach and increase your audience. This should be one of your main functions because there are users who do not like creating many accounts for different videos and they will want to watch your broadcast on the platform where they have already been registered instead of downloading another application.

As a result, we can say that the development of applications of this kind is a very difficult process. Before starting it, you should think carefully about everything that you expect to get from such an application. You need to think about a good strategy for bringing new users to your app. Of course, good companies that develop such applications have dedicated specialists who can provide recommendations that are suitable specifically for your product.

When choosing a team, study their experience in writing similar software, try to contact customers who are already using their product, and discuss all the intricacies of working with this company. Perhaps they can give you advice on what to look for first.

Well, the most important factor in the success of your application will be the professional experience of each of the team members. Talk to the project manager, let him tell you about the team and what experience they had before, what difficulties they have already encountered and how they solved them. Such a small conversation will not only save you time but also improve your interaction with the future team and it will be easier for you to understand each other.