Some of Our Media Clients:
A New Era of Streaming
Real-time broadcasts and streaming video have become differentiators for many businesses: in 2019, 87% used video as a marketing tool. Ninety-six percent of users say they used a how-to video to learn more about a product, and 79% of users say video convinced them to make a purchase.
With more than a decade of experience delivering live streaming and events, Softjourn has been a trusted partner in hosting many major U.S. series, live events, and video on demand services including The Daily Show, MTV, Nickelodeon, Big Brother, Jersey Shore, EPiX, and more.
Whether it’s developing a live streaming app from scratch, extending the functionality of existing live streaming services, or integrating with current platforms like Wowza or Brightcove, we’re sure we can find the right solution for your business’s needs
Live Streaming App Must-Haves
Advanced real-time compression algorithms reduce bandwidth requirements while maintaining broadcast-quality video. Enables reliable streaming across all connection speeds from 3G to fiber, optimizing infrastructure costs without compromising viewer experience.
Comprehensive feature set supporting broadcast-quality streaming to TV platforms and user-generated content creation. Built-in editing tools, social media integration, and multiple monetization options, including subscriptions, advertising, and pay-per-view.
Global content delivery network with strategically placed edge servers ensures low-latency streaming worldwide. High-availability architecture designed for traffic spikes with intelligent routing for optimal performance based on viewer location.
Modern HTML5 video players offer maximum device compatibility without the need for plugins. Adaptive streaming quality, intuitive interface design, smart content discovery, and advanced playback features including picture-in-picture and background audio support.
Cloud-native architecture (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) with automatic scaling capabilities and high-availability design. Intelligent content optimization, automatic transcoding for multiple formats, and global distribution for faster access.
Industry-standard AES encryption and Digital Rights Management (DRM) protect premium content. Multi-layer security includes geo-restrictions, IP-based access controls, enterprise SSO integration, and proactive monitoring to prevent unauthorized access.
We’ll Help You Take Advantage Of These Live Streaming App Benefits
Wider Audience Potential
Deliver a consistent experience no matter where your audience is located with adaptive bitrate streaming. With adaptive streaming, we can help you achieve the best video quality and viewer experience possible for both high-end and low-end connections.
Mobile Access
Choose completely native Android and iOS apps, or go hybrid. We can advise on what’s best for your situation. Either way, we can ensure the right functionality (such as push notifications, offline viewing, and more) for the right audience, packaged in a seamless UX.
Analytics
We can build personalized user profiles into your platform, which collect data for you and empower your users to manage their preferences in a customized dashboard. We can also include a robust search functionality that helps users find the media they’re looking for, as well as tells you what content users are interested in.
Built-in Payments
Enabling payments is one of our core competencies; we can integrate your platform with the best payment solution available and create a seamless checkout process. We can walk you through different monetization schemes and what works best for your vision.
Fan Engagement
We can integrate social features to encourage your audience to share content with friends and invite new users. Other fan engagement functionality such as Q&A, rating systems, and comments help you engage audiences early and keep them coming back for more.
Advertisement
We can set up your platform to offer pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll advertisements that are strategically placed based on a video’s performance to create maximum revenue.
Live Streaming Case Studies
SnappyTV: Edit Live. Share Everywhere
Softjourn collaborated with SnappyTV (acquired by Twitter) and one of its customers, a major international media company, to enhance the Android mobile experience for viewers of a popular TV show. This project included integrating the exciting social interaction options of the SnappyTV platform.
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Pana Television: Video Streaming Done Easily
Pana Television, a modern African TV content provider, partnered with Softjourn to create an ad-supported video platform. By leveraging Softjourn’s expertise, Pana provided their customers with a fast and easy-to-navigate video website that offered modern streaming functionality and must-have social media integration.
Cinewav: Audio/Video Solution for Outdoor Cinema Experience
Cinewav, a Singapore-based startup, approached Softjourn with a unique idea—to deliver a new, immersive approach to outdoor group movie-watching events. Softjourn’s team developed and validated a solution that aligns video and audio perfectly through a mobile application that users can install on their smartphones. Cinewav believes this app could create the largest outdoor cinema and gather sizable audiences without creating noise pollution.
Live Video Broadcasting Service
When our client engaged with Softjourn, its sophisticated video-streaming architecture was built on Flash. Going forward, many browsers will no longer support this mature, heavyweight technology.
The company wanted to ensure reliable, private video streaming. The client also wanted the potential to allow subscribers to make payments directly, rather than using third-party credit card payment services.
JellyTelly: iOS and Android Apps for Meaningful Kids’ Entertainment
JellyTelly chose Softjourn to expand their mobile reach by developing new iOS and Android apps that would provide faith-based videos and devotionals developed for children. This project included simultaneous mobile app development, API construction, and use of the latest technology to provide an adaptive UX.
Keep Your Favorite Musical Streaming Channels Anywhere
Like many apps of this kind, a new music streaming application allows for two sets of functionality depending on the type of a subscription. Users with a free subscription can listen to radio streaming, as well as music from the web server, however they are limited in some of the functionality (e.g. no option for skipping songs, disabled progress bar, no option for creating playlists etc.) that is available with a paid subscription.
Platform Strategy for Custom Live Streaming App Development?
Higher Revenue Per User: iOS users spend 2x more on app purchases and subscriptions. Premium streaming services see better monetization rates on iOS.
Faster Enterprise Adoption: Corporate streaming and internal communication apps gain traction faster on iOS due to enterprise security preferences and device management.
Streamlined Development: Unified hardware ecosystem and mature development tools reduce testing complexity. Single programming language (Swift) accelerates initial development.
Maximum Global Reach: Access to 3 billion+ active devices worldwide. Essential platform for international expansion and emerging market penetration.
Advanced Customization: Open architecture enables unique streaming features and deeper system integration. Greater flexibility for innovative user experiences.
Rapid Market Testing: A faster Google Play approval process (approvals often complete within hours) enables quicker feature iteration and market validation for new streaming concepts.
Want to know more about our live streaming app development services?
Integrate Your App with Popular Live Streaming Platforms
Why Choose Softjourn?
- Expertise: Our domain knowledge enables us to evaluate, identify, and implement tailored solutions. We create services for live events, video streaming, and on-demand content, helping clients increase market share, fan engagement, and more. We tackle challenges with innovative solutions.
- Forward-thinking: With our R&D Centers, we're always exploring new technologies to meet clients' evolving needs. We stay ahead of the curve to ensure our clients remain competitive.
- Transparent Communication: We believe in proactive collaboration and informing clients at every project stage. As a trusted partner, we deliver customized solutions and services that yield measurable industry results.
- Upgrade frontend or backend features to ensure your live streaming service can handle the demand social distancing has created for live streaming.
- Enhance existing systems and applications or build new ones from scratch.
- Want modern technology or upgrades, but don’t have the time or bandwidth to handle.
- Meet clients’ “cool factor” expectations.
- Collaborate with a tech partner who can hit the ground running due to an understanding of the live streaming industry.
Engagement Models
What We Offer
Whether upgrading an existing code or creating a new one, the most important expertise we offer is a proven approach to mitigating risk and containing costs. Discover more about Softjourn's expert Consulting Services.
Often clients don’t know what product they need, but do know the results they want. Our job is to help define the product and develop optimal solutions to get those results. Learn more about Softjourn's Discovery Phase Services.
To compete, our clients continually need to provide new and better services. We have our own R&D Centers – started in 2008 – which uniquely positions us to do just that. Read more about Softjourn's Research and Development Services.
Our developers and illustrators are experts at UI and UX design. They will work with you to understand your needs in going from idea to prototype to deployment faster and at less cost. Explore further into Softjourn's Digital Product Design Services.
Software development has grown exponentially in recent decades. Softjourn is the solution to help you define and develop forward-thinking technology that gets real-world results. Get to know more about Softjourn's Software Engineering Services.
Our core belief is that analyzing and testing is critical because the essential role of software is so important. In the process, our Quality Assurance team helps you create superior products. Explore further into Softjourn's QA services.
Since day one, we’ve been providing application support and maintenance services to each customer on every project. It’s why we’re a proven, trusted partner and reliable asset. Get to know more about Softjourn's Application Support and Maintenance Services.
Our technology stack at Softjourn is designed to empower us to deliver world-class services to our clients. With a strong focus on innovation and efficiency, we continually adapt our expertise to stay ahead of the curve. Discover the Technologies and Frameworks we utilize, and learn how we can bring your ideas to life.
Client Testimonials
Tacit Corporation selected Softjourn for tech their needs because of their technical expertise and direct approach. Brenda Crainic, CTO of Tacit, shared, "We grew a lot as a company over the last 12 years and our processes changed, many of the current development practices being initiated by the team. I count a lot of my team’s expertise and I am confident in our ability to deliver cutting-edge technology for our clients.
Our team’s dedication to understanding Tacit's needs has been instrumental in enhancing their platform’s capabilities, ensuring robust solutions. This ongoing collaboration underscores our commitment to delivering high-quality, innovative services that support our clients' visions." - Brenda Crainic, CTO and Co-Founder of Tacit
Frequently Asked Questions:
Softjourn specializes in developing high-quality live streaming apps for various platforms, such as iOS, Android, and web. Their services include custom app development, UI/UX design, integration with existing systems, real-time analytics, monetization features, and ongoing support and maintenance. They work closely with clients to understand their unique requirements and deliver tailored solutions to meet their business objectives.
Softjourn ensures the scalability and performance of their live streaming apps by utilizing advanced technologies, such as adaptive bitrate streaming, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), and cloud-based infrastructure. This enables the apps to handle a large number of concurrent users while minimizing buffering, and providing a high-quality video streaming experience. The team at Softjourn continuously optimizes the apps to ensure they meet the increasing demands of modern users.
Softjourn caters to a wide range of industries and sectors, including sports, entertainment, education, healthcare, and corporate events. They have experience in developing live streaming apps for various use cases, such as broadcasting live events, interactive webinars, online courses, and remote consultations. Their diverse portfolio showcases their ability to create tailored solutions that cater to the unique needs of each industry.
Softjourn prioritizes security and privacy throughout the app development process. They do this by implementing multiple layers of security, including data encryption, secure APIs, and user authentication, to protect sensitive data and user information. The company also adheres to industry best practices and complies with relevant data protection regulations, such as GDPR, to ensure the privacy of app users and safeguard their clients' interests.
The timeline and cost for a live streaming app development project with Softjourn depend on various factors, such as the project scope, complexity, and platform requirements. Generally, a custom app development project can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. The cost varies based on the specific needs and features of the app. To get an accurate estimate, it is recommended to reach out to Softjourn with your project details and requirements, and they will provide you with a customized proposal.
Softjourn has expertise in working with a variety of SDKs (Software Development Kits) for live streaming app development to ensure the best performance and user experience. Some popular SDKs they work with include:
Wowza Streaming Engine SDK: A powerful and customizable media server software that enables high-quality streaming across different platforms and devices.
Agora.io SDK: A popular real-time communication SDK that allows developers to add live streaming, voice, and video chat features to their apps with low latency and high-quality performance.
Twilio Video SDK: A comprehensive SDK that provides tools for building live streaming apps with real-time communication capabilities, such as video chat and screen sharing.
OpenTok (Vonage Video API): A flexible and scalable SDK that enables developers to integrate live video, voice, and messaging into their applications, with support for WebRTC technology.
Ant Media Server SDK: An ultra-low latency adaptive streaming platform that provides live video broadcasting and streaming features for web, mobile, and IoT applications.
Softjourn selects the most suitable SDK for each project based on the client's requirements and the specific features needed for the live streaming app.
Live streaming apps can generate revenue through various monetization strategies, which often include combining methods to maximize earnings. Here are some common ways live streaming apps make money:
- Advertising: Live streaming apps can display advertisements during the streaming sessions, either as pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll video ads or display ads within the app interface. Advertisers pay the app owners based on the number of views or click their ads receive.
- Subscription fees: Some live streaming apps offer premium content or ad-free experiences to users who subscribe to a monthly or annual plan. Subscriptions provide a steady revenue stream and help retain users by offering exclusive content or features.
- In-app purchases: Live streaming apps may offer users the ability to purchase virtual goods, such as custom emojis, stickers, or filters, to enhance their live streaming experience. Users can also purchase digital gifts to support their favorite streamers, with the app taking a percentage of the revenue.
- Donations and tipping: Many live streaming apps allow viewers to tip or donate money to their favorite content creators directly within the app. The platform usually takes a percentage of these transactions as a fee for facilitating the process.
- Sponsored content: Content creators and influencers can partner with brands to promote their products or services during live streams. The app may receive a portion of the revenue generated from these partnerships or charge a fee for enabling such collaborations.
- Pay-per-view events: Live streaming apps can host exclusive events, such as concerts, sports events, or workshops, which users can access by purchasing a one-time ticket or a pay-per-view pass. The revenue from these sales is typically shared between the app and the event organizer or content creator.
- Affiliate marketing: Live streaming apps can partner with other businesses to promote products or services during streams. Content creators may receive a commission based on the sales generated through their affiliate links, and the app may take a portion of that commission.
- Licensing and syndication: Some live streaming apps may generate revenue by licensing their content to other platforms, such as television networks, or by syndicating their streams to other online platforms. This can provide additional exposure and revenue opportunities.
In summary, live streaming apps can generate revenue through various monetization strategies, such as advertising, subscriptions, in-app purchases, donations, sponsored content, pay-per-view events, affiliate marketing, and licensing. By leveraging multiple revenue streams, these apps can maximize their earnings while providing engaging and valuable content to their users.
We were encouraged because Softjourn asked the right questions and involved people with the right experience in the conversations.
Founder at PEX
Softjourn included us as part of the team, not just as clients, which we loved as we wanted to know what was happening on a technical level and work it out as part of the team.
Co-Founder and Director at Cinewav