10 Essential Elements to Creating a Great Video Streaming App

今年9月，蒂姆•库克(Tim Cook)在介绍新款Apple TV时表示，“电视的未来是应用程序。,“他处于苹果典型的追赶模式. TDG 研究’s Joel Espelien said the future of TV is an app way back in 2013, and savvy video publishers have been pushing their content out via apps for years.

仍然, Cook’s pronouncement adds weight to the notion that, if you’re a content owner who doesn’t yet have an app that works across multiple devices, 是时候解决这个问题了. 我们与在线视频工作流程的各个领域的专家进行了交谈，以了解视频发行商在创建应用程序时需要牢记的内容. 如果你已经有了一个应用, you might want to re-evaluate it in light of the suggestions that follow.

1. 定义你的产品

“为你想要实现的目标创造一个清晰的消费者定位，并专注于此,安德鲁·洛克说, NBC新闻产品策略副总裁. ”Really think clearly about what that app on that platform is going to be used for.”

NBC 新闻 viewers want to be able to come in at 9:17 a.m. 或者晚上8:42.m. 或者是3a.m. and not worry about what the broadcast schedule is or in what order they want to watch. So simply recreating the linear broadcast in an app wouldn’t serve viewers’ needs.

“Avoid relying too heavily on lessons that you have learned from the web, especially when it comes to something like an OTT platform such as Roku or an Apple TV,洛克说. “A lot of the lessons are poorly applied if you switch platforms.”

几乎所有与我们交谈过的人都强调仔细规划应用开发各个方面的重要性. While you can always modify something if something doesn’t work, 在没有规划好必要组件的情况下开发应用可能会大大增加成本.

“我们是新闻y的数字原住民. I think a lot of the time broadcasters and traditional content creators think they can just slap something on an OTT device and people are going to watch it; that’s not always the case,Blake Sabatinelli说, 在线新闻网站新闻y的总经理. “你必须制作适合平台和用户的内容，而且必须是优秀的内容.”

Compelling content is just one part of the story; a methodical approach to the technology behind the content is another vital factor. 维亚康姆有一个核心产品小组，负责提高各品牌应用开发的效率.

“We provide components to all of the 维亚康姆 brands—Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., and we are on-boarding BET right now onto our video players as well,丹尼尔·巴利斯说, senior director of product for multiplatform video, MTS全球, 维亚康姆. “让所有这些品牌独立开发软件组件是没有意义的.”

2. 用户体验

Video app success comes as much from the user experience as from the content. This means paying attention to how your audience wants to navigate your content, from the menu structure to the player delivery to the type of content.

“We now have the long-waited-for convergence of mobile development and TV,洛克说. “与12或18个月前相比，这些平台的功能有了很大的提高. 我们能够设想功能，并尝试一些以前不可能实现的东西.”

特性 trending this year include autoplaying on start, 连续播放, 跨平台查看器创建的监视列表, 现场回放, 推动警报, 服务器端AD插入. 用户还希望有一种简单的登录和支付方式, 还有一个大目录, where they can bookmark and list next episodes for watching.

How do publishers get viewers into the best experience?

在产品重新设计中, 应用开发公司WillowTree能够在30天内为客户增加约10%的市场份额. 重新设计改进了三个关键领域:支付系统、流质量和用户界面. “We didn’t change the content,” says Michael Prichard, founder and CTO of WillowTree. “We built a better experience, which increased their numbers.”

Regardless of whether it’s a new or revised property, the common mantra from the experts was “get viewers into content quickly.”

“I think there’s an overwhelming trend to remove UI layers. In all the properties that we’ve released [in 2015], 已经有十几个了, you can one-click into some video from the homepage. 这是一个转变[从2014年开始],卡莱姆·弗莱彻说, senior vice president North America of app development company UI Centric.

研究显示，千禧一代消费了大量的视频内容，推动了这种一键式的方式. 他们狼吞虎咽地看视频, so apps are being designed to move them into and through content as quickly as possible.

新闻y encapsulates the emphasis on user experience nicely: “We’re video creators, 毕竟, 我们应该为这项工作感到自豪，我们应该尽快让人们体验到这项工作,萨巴蒂内利说.

“我们在制作视频时考虑到了Facebook用户, 具体地说, 用户手里拿着手机，没有开着音量，但他们仍然希望能够看新闻,萨巴蒂内利说. “我们专门在屏幕上播放文字，并为说话的人配上字幕，这样观众就可以了解他们需要知道的东西，而不必开着音量。.”

3. 大数据与体验定制

多年来，“个性化”一直是一个流行词, 在大数据的帮助下, one development company has started to deliver it in a unique way.

UI Centric uses artificial intelligence to create models based on demographic 信息, 然后将这些信息应用到用户体验中. 利用数据来瞄准观众并不是什么新鲜事, 但实际上，通过细分交付和在应用程序中提供自定义用户体验来改变用户体验是. UI Centric正在采用基于web的A/B测试实践，看看哪些表现更好，并利用这些信息帮助其客户提供自定义体验.

其结果是，UI Centric可以根据特定用户类型更受欢迎的内容提供不同的体验.

“根据我们所认为的用户类型，通过改变导航模式，它实际上完全改变了用户体验,弗莱彻说。.

虽然现在很少有发行商这么做，但希望它能成为未来的标准做法.

4. 策划广告策略

用户增长正在推动收益机会, which is why we’re seeing more content owners interested in dynamic ad insertion, either to replace or supplement existing commercial breaks.

“Everyone is trying to get the right balance between user experience and monetization,弗莱彻说。. 我会说, 让它成为你如何投放广告以及投放多少广告的战略的核心部分. Those policies need to be in your strategy to begin with. 许多广播公司都减少了前卷的数量，然后放了一个非常早的中卷来组成这些广告单元. 这是让人们进入内容并停留在内容中的策略之一.”

One development company commented that publishers want to include ads, but provided few details on the ad planning side of the equation. There are questions to consider, such as how long is the optimum length for a break? 你允许人们跳过广告吗, 或者你找到一个更奇特的解决方案, 就像YouTube对可跳过广告的做法一样?

出版商有机会在广告上发挥创意，就像他们通过不同的布局类型提供的一些内容一样, 关键字类型, A/B测试变化, 静态vs. 卷前和卷后广告. 请继续关注.

5. 广告技术

Once you’ve got an ad strategy, you need a technology to execute it. Server-side ad stitching is becoming more popular for app developers. “It makes the experience on all your devices more seamless and

更高质量的,朱迪·约翰逊说。, director of product management at app development company Bottle Rocket. “在某些情况下，我们甚至讨论在本地玩家的直播内容上进行服务器端广告拼接, 不需要第三方播放器.”

“If app developers want to use server-side ad insertion, they will typically not need to do anything special, 因为服务器端广告插入的优势在于，流播放列表(清单)在到达玩家之前就会被即时修改, making them compatible with [almost] any stock HLS or DASH player,Alex Zambelli说, 首席产品经理, iStreamPlanet.

应用开发者仍然应该确保他们的玩家能够处理由于服务器端广告插入而导致的时间戳中断和编解码器变化.

服务器端广告的另一个巨大好处是确保为特定地点购买的广告得到传递. “今年，我们确实看到一些大品牌开始在服务器端插入广告，并从中赚了大钱,马特·史密斯说, Avanto的首席布道师. “如果你在iPhone上安装了广告拦截器，你正在通过他们的应用程序观看NBC的流媒体, there is 0 percent chance that you’re going to get an ad blocker to interrupt that stream.”

不过，客户端广告插入也有它的支持者. “客户端广告插入的优势, 而不是服务器端, method is that it allows greater flexibility and scalability in targeted advertising, but it comes at a potentially higher app development cost,赞贝利说.

对于应用开发者来说，实现对客户端广告插入的支持是一项更加劳动密集型的任务, 因为它通常需要与第三方sdk(如Adobe Primetime)集成或开发本地解决方案，以确保主程序和广告之间的无缝过渡.

下一个页面