Streaming Expertise Is a Growing Commodity

Video is everywhere. From healthcare to e-commerce, an increasing number of organizations are leveraging its power to innovate, engage customers, and grow their business.

Today, more than two-thirds of all consumer internet traffic is video — and that number is set to increase to 82% by 2020. Because humans are a visual species, video streaming creates more memorable and engaging experiences. From product tutorials to live social broadcasts, the power of video in marketing and entertainment is well documented. 80% of people would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video over other social posts.

But video streaming goes beyond just marketing and entertainment. For many new companies, streaming is foundational to the very services they offer. Consider Taobao, the world’s biggest e-commerce website. The Alibaba-owned platform fuses online retail with live streaming to close the gap between customer and product. Called live commerce, this trend promises to revolutionize the retail industry and consumer shopping habits. 

Then there’s IoT video streaming, which includes everything from pet monitors and doorbell cams to streaming surgical equipment and disaster response drones. The number of devices connected to the internet will be more than three times the global population by 2022, and the chances are that a sizeable percentage of those connected devices will incorporate streaming technology.

Without a doubt, video streaming is finding its way into every industry and use case. And yet, most organizations lack the practical know-how to implement this technology. Streaming expertise is now a growing commodity, with demand outpacing supply.

Live Streaming Is Complex

Even though anyone with a smartphone can capture video and stream the content to billions of users on the internet, what occurs in the background is quite complicated. The data must be encoded, packaged, and often transcoded for delivery to virtually any screen on the planet. Making live video work across platforms and at scale takes skill and experience.

The right architecture and configurations also vary depending on what an organization is trying to achieve. For example, music events require the best audio possible. Security cameras? Not so much. And while video chats don’t need to be streamed in 4K, maximizing quality is crucial for many high-profile broadcasts.

When considering free platforms like Facebook Live, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitch, and others, businesses will quickly find that these come with security concerns and limited functionality. Monetization can also be difficult, as these platforms lend themselves to marketing efforts rather than building live-streaming solutions.

Streaming to social media is also an isolated scenario, with substantial infrastructure behind it. To enable the same capability for varying use cases, technologies, devices, and network connections, paid streaming platforms are required.

Several vendors that frequent Streaming Media's list of Companies That Matter Most in Online Video (including Wowza Media Systems, Microsoft, Google, and more) offer streaming infrastructure solutions for product and app builders looking to implement live streaming. But until recently, a stark void in the industry persisted: the need for streaming professional services.

Why the Industry Needs Professional Services

Many organizations are intimidated and don’t know where to begin when it comes to implementing streaming technology. For anyone looking to leverage this technology without in-house video expertise, professional services can eliminate any stumbling blocks. Working with streaming experts also help accelerate time to value, speed up deployment, and enable business success.

Streaming vendors offering professional services can make recommendations based on industry best practices to help with everything from configuring servers to architecting streaming systems. What’s more, these vendors can customize workflow solutions to an organization’s unique resources and use cases.

Service-oriented vendors are also able to prepare their customers for growth by offering consulting services, classroom training, and live event support. This provides organizations with the confidence needed to tackle whatever comes their way by leveraging an extension of their in-house team.  

Customer Success Is the Name of the Game

In today’s business landscape, it’s all about customer success. That’s why an increasing number of streaming companies are becoming more solutions-oriented by offering professional services. At Wowza, we leverage more than a decade of video-streaming knowledge — encompassing everything from configuring servers to architecting unique streaming systems — to help organizations realize business success quickly.

We recently worked with Dote, a mobile e-commerce app, to develop their live-streaming Shopping Party feature. As Dote worked to make the app more robust and sophisticated, our team of engineers addressed any challenges that arose. 

Dote Product Manager Maria Luisa Rhodes explains, “We realized that video requires a lot of knowledge, and we had a small team of engineers without streaming expertise. We were developing a complex environment with multiple risks due to interactivity and dual streams. This made for a very unique configuration that required the help of Wowza Professional Services.” 

“We wouldn’t have met our launch date without enlisting the help of Wowza Professional Services,” says Rhodes. “We started working with Wowza for this reason. They sped up the process significantly and tackled roadblocks that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to solve.” 

Whether it’s employee training, product integrations, architecture recommendations, or even application development, Wowza Professional Services can tame the complexities of live video for each customer's use case.

Our goal is simple: make everyone successful at what they do. We designed Wowza Professional Services to make streaming technology accessible to anyone who can benefit from it. Call us at (303) 569-6632 or schedule a call to learn more.

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