How To Start A Streaming Service Like Netflix?
Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Sony Crackle, and many more have been gaining popularity over the years. The demand for these OTT services has been rising consistently as the content broadcasted over these platforms is more diverse and entertaining.
The variety of media that these applications offer attracts the attention of people from all age groups. Consequently, the profitability of these video streaming platforms is also quite good.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to try and build a video streaming app of your own either for a specific target audience or one for a larger audience to monetize the potential this industry offers.
The process to create a live streaming app or make a video streaming app is not all that difficult if you follow a systematic procedure and strategize the progression of your efforts and actions to build a video streaming app.
In this article, we’ve mentioned all the necessary steps to follow for video streaming app development and other helpful programming languages and software that would make the process easier for you.
But before we move on to learn about what it takes to make a live video streaming app or build a video streaming app, let’s understand what these platforms are.
A streaming service is the continuous transmission of video and audio files from the server to the client on demand. The data is transferred between the client and the server. For example, streaming occurs when a user watches TV, podcasts, or surfs videos.
Video streaming is a type of media streaming in which data from a video file is continuously delivered to a remote user over the Internet. It allows you to watch a video online without downloading it to your computer or device.
Therefore, video streaming apps are those mobile or web applications that enable the broadcasting or streaming of various video files over the internet as and when requested by the client or user of the app.
How To Build A Video Streaming App?
Following are the steps that one may follow or consider to create a video or live streaming app without unnecessary hassles and confusion. Adhering to the steps could significantly ease the process of video streaming app development.
1. Strategize
In order to make a video streaming app that will be efficient and successful, the first and foremost thing you’ll need to do is strategize the development and launch of your app.
Without a proper plan in place, it would be nearly difficult to set out on the right path of video streaming app development. Therefore, to build a successful streaming video platform, you might consider specific vital components.
These might include focusing on content creation for the video streaming app. In addition, you’ll require a strong marketing strategy to popularize your app, including aspects such as App Store Optimization, monetization, and more.
Lastly, app internationalization is another crucial component of the strategy. Once the app is launched, a good plan would be required to expand the services of the on-demand video streaming app beyond particular geographical areas.
2. Determining A Project Scope
The next step to consider in this guide is determining the scope of your live streaming app development project. By the project scope, we imply figuring out the target audience for the video streaming app you wish to begin with and determining a minimum viable product for the app.
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Besides that, you would also need to determine the target platforms for which you’d like to begin the video streaming app development. For instance, you may choose to build the app either for Web, Android devices, or iOS devices.
3. Building A Team
Understanding and recognizing that in order to build a video streaming app, one would require different kinds of efforts from various professionals is crucial. Since numerous aspects must be covered while making an application, a strong team of developers and creators would help develop a successful app.
The video streaming app development team could include software architects, UI/UX designers, business analysts, web developers, iOS developers, android developers, and a project manager.
4. Choosing The Right Software Architecture
If you want to attract a huge user base and generate heavy internet traffic on your video streaming application, it would require you to select an able and efficient software architecture pattern.
One of the most popular choices in this regard is Microservices Architecture Pattern. This is because it allows the integration of different services such as subscription, account management, and video streaming in a much more manageable way, thus making them more scalable.
Next, the microservices pattern helps analyze the ups and downs in demand for individual streaming, helping optimize and prioritize the resources for the video streaming app development and growth accordingly.
5. PaaS Account For A Web App
You can accelerate the process of web video streaming app development by signing up for a Platform as a Service or PaaS account. Most developers recommend AWS Elastic Beanstalk or AWS PaaS as it has remarkable cloud capabilities.
There are several advantages that a PaaS offers, making it an essential component to make a video streaming app. Some of these are as follows: there is no need to invest in a data center. PaaS provides all the essential services such as runtime environment, operating system, cloud infrastructure, storage, middleware, networking, and server.
As a result, a developer can simply focus on coding for the video streaming application. In addition, PaaS would allow you to integrate cloud databases in your application and incorporate 3rd party APIs in the live streaming app development process.
Lastly, PaaS providers offer application monitoring, DevOps, and automated scaling solutions that assist to make a video streaming app more efficient.
6. MBaaS Account For A Mobile App
MBaaS or Mobile Backend as a Service can be immensely helpful in a mobile live streaming app development. One of the most recommended MBaaS is AWS Amplify, which has the following advantages:
- The provider manages the cloud infrastructure for the mobile application backend of the video streaming services.
- With the help of an MBaaS provider, it will be easier to target multiple mobile platforms.
- In addition, it will provide persistent data storage and better user management. And the security features of the MBaaS provider would be helpful for the developers.
- Push notifications can also be integrated while developers make a video streaming app using MBaaS.
- In addition, mobile app developers can benefit from the geolocation capabilities of the MBaaS providers.
- Lastly, MBaaS makes incorporating microservices software architecture pattern a lot easier, thereby improving the live streaming app development.
7. Choose A Cloud Streaming Service
The next important thing to consider is choosing a good cloud service provider for video streaming app development. Wowza is recommended as one of the best cloud streaming service providers among several others, such as Unscreen, Brightcove, Pivotshare, JW Player, and more.
The advantages of using a cloud service are as follows: these are fully managed services that don’t require an elaborate investment for hardware setup. In addition, using these would help create a live streaming app that would provide users a great experience due to low latency.
8. Choose A Subscription Management Solution
The next step would be choosing a subscription management solution. It will save a lot of time if you select an excellent subscription management service for your live streaming app development since you would not need to code the function from scratch.
There are several subscription management services available in the market. Out of them, Zoho has received a considerable amount of recommendations. This is because it offers the following features and advantages: reliable subscription management, recurring billing, helpful subscription metrics, regular payments, robust security features, subscription automation, extensive API documentation, and high-quality support.
9. Choosing eCommerce APIs For In-App Purchase
The in-app purchase option in a video streaming app could be integrated with features such as high-quality streaming, exclusive video content, and more. Incorporating an eCommerce solution could help implement this feature.
eCommerce APIs have the following advantages: they are flexible, and developers can use the SDKs and APIs in innovative ways. Moreover, they also work in sync with microservices architecture and are an excellent performant solution. Besides that, developers can use the excellent documentation of eCommerce APIs.
JavaScriptSDK can be used to develop the eCommerce API for the web, iOS development can be done using Swift SDK, and the Android SDK will be helpful in Android video streaming app development.
10. Using Node.js For Web App Development
A majority of developers have recommended Node.js as they believe it is relatively better to build a video streaming app than other programming languages since it has the following advantages:
- Node.js is the most helpful programming language when it comes to scaling the application. This is because it supports asynchronous event-driven programming that enables smooth expansion.
- Node.js is an easy-to-learn programming language, especially for JavaScript developers.
- The programming language makes it much easier to implement streaming services on the video streaming apps.
- Lastly, Node.js developers can benefit from the modern open-source document databases that use JavaScript. Using them, they can implement database quires in the video streaming apps with ease.
11. Coding, Testing, and Deploying The Web App
Next up, after making all the necessary selections and registering for PaaS and MBaaS, the coding, testing, and deploying process of the video streaming app development can be initiated.
You can begin to make a live or video streaming app using the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Node.js runtime environment and use the database services that suit your requirements.
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Next, connect the video streaming app to the chosen cloud streaming service, subscription management solution, and the eCommerce API.
Lastly, you can test and deploy the video streaming app you’ve built using the Express.js framework on the Elastic Beanstalk.
12. Designing The Mobile App UI
While designing a mobile app for video streaming services, you can adhere to some key aspects that would help you build a good one. First, design a simple and elegant mobile navigation menu. Also, consider choosing a color scheme that would be comfortable for the eyes. Lastly, design icons such that they are easy to comprehend.
13. Developing And Testing The Android App
With the help of Android Studio, which is a popular Android integrated development environment, you can begin to build a video streaming app for android devices. You may use any programming language you wish to use to code your application. Many developers have been using Kotlin lately as it has a concise syntax that provides productivity benefits.
Using Kotlin has helped developers eliminate common syntax errors. In addition, several guidelines are available on the internet to help you better understand and use Kotlin to make a live streaming app.
The final step to complete the process of video streaming app development would be to integrate Android SDK for cloud streaming service, Android SDK for eCommerce API, and a suitable subscription management solution.
14. Developing And Testing The iOS App
You can consider the following process for developing and testing the video streaming app for iOS devices. Firstly, you’d require to use a good iOS integrated development environment or IDE, then select a modern iOS development programming language.
Most developers who build video streaming apps for iOS prefer to use Xcode IDE and Swift programming language. The benefits of Swift that attract the developers are its feature to eliminate common errors for iOS app coding and provide greater maintainability. Besides that, by using Swift, they get to integrate better functionality with less coding.
And lastly, the final step to complete the process of video streaming app development would be to integrate iOS SDK for cloud streaming service, eCommerce API, and a suitable subscription management solution.
15. Publishing The Applications
After completing the video streaming app development and testing stages, you can finally publish the applications built on their respective mobile application stores.
You can find helpful guidelines for publishing a mobile application for Android devices on Google Play Store and iOS devices on Apple App Store. This stage might also include a review of your application to ensure that they are in sync with a set of content, technical, and design criteria followed by the application store.
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The official sites of Apple and Google can also help you understand how to release a video streaming app on the respective platforms. You can also check out video tutorials to pursue the same on YouTube.
16. Managing The Projects
The last thing to do after you’re done building a video streaming app is to manage the entire project, which can be done well using some project management applications such as Scrum.
The software helps develop organized plans by iterating estimates and prioritizing essential features. In addition, it enables the users to track the project’s progress by providing the option to conduct daily stand-up meetings.
Scrum also enables the users to obtain stakeholder approval for important estimation and planning tasks in a review meeting. Moreover, the software has a unique feature wherein all the users put in a team together can learn valuable information and lessons from a completed project plan through a retrospective meeting.
These practices can be beneficial in ensuring that the video streaming app you developed delivers all the essential services smoothly and efficiently.
Besides Scrum, Jira and Agile are also among the top project management tools that you may consider to organize the functionality and operations of your video streaming app.
17. Plan To Extend Services – Optional
While you might have developed a video streaming or live streaming app for web and mobile devices, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to explore other platforms as well, such as Android TV, tvOS, or Amazon FireTV.
Doing so could provide you with a great opportunity and experience to learn and grow as a developer or project manager of video streaming apps for multiple devices.
Conclusion
You can build a video streaming app or create a live streaming app easily without putting in the unnecessary effort by following a simple strategic plan. Just follow the steps mentioned above in the article, and you’ll find yourself swiftly moving through the process of video streaming app development. In addition, there are several guidelines, tutorials, and software available on the internet to make a live streaming app. Take help from those and experiment with new ideas to make the best.
