Self-introduction
My name is Kale. I've been engaged eight years on the audio and video technology and now work for ZEGOCLOUD, an audio and video technology service company.
Due to the characteristics of my work, I was able to visit and serve hundreds of live streaming companies, witnessing the extension of the reach of the live streaming industry from races and games to shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities, and many more.
Many people have asked me how to launch a live streaming platform, a question which I believe is faced by everyone who is new to the industry.
To help newbies take a short cut, I will share my experience gained over the past years in the live streaming industry by introducing the various features of live streaming and their technical solutions in a series of articles.
Live streaming analysis
As an industry, live streaming is already worth billions of dollars and it’s only expected to grow.
According to various projections, including one by Grand View Research, the live streaming industry is expected to climb from $70 billion in 2021 to almost $224 billion in 2028. That’s a projected three-fold increase over seven years!
How do we engage in the rapidly-developing live streaming industry?
Hosts and participants are, in fact, the two main target groups in live streaming.
All we need to do is to reach out to them and serve them well in order to scramble for a share in this lucrative live streaming industry.
Now, I'll explain how to look for and serve hosts and participants.
Basic features
Room, people, and streams are three basic elements in live streaming.
Room - responsible for the management of the resources (such as participants, hosts, messages, and gifts) and events (such as the entry and exit of participants and camera switch).
People - responsible for activities and content creation, such as frames and bullet chats.
Streams - responsible for data transmission, such as the transmission of the videos and voice of hosts, as well as the transmission of bullet chats.
A problem with any of the three basic elements may lead to a loss of hosts or participants; therefore, the stability of the three elements is key to live streaming. I will elaborate on how to ensure their stability from a technical perspective in another article.
Host-serving features
Now, I will introduce the various features of live streaming in terms of serving hosts and participants, respectively.
The main purpose of host-serving features is to increase the income of hosts. Features like timekeeping live streaming, guardian rankings, host competitions, and co-hosting with participants all aim at attracting participants to pay for the interaction with hosts.
For detailed features and functions, see the table below:
| Feature | Function | Technology |
|---|---|---|
| Paid live streaming | Attract participants to pay fees to watch live streaming | Paid live streaming is easy to operate; however, special techniques are needed to prevent videos delivered over RTMP addresses from being stolen. |
| Timekeeping live streaming | Attract participants to watch live streaming by charging by minute | Same as above |
| Private live streaming | Participants can only watch live streaming by obtaining passwords, which will be given if participants send virtual gifts to hosts. | Same as above |
| Live stream shopping | Hosts earn commissions or advertising fees through live stream shopping | Many mature solutions of live stream shopping can help live streaming platforms get started quickly. |
| Contributor rankings | Gratify the vanity of participants with daily, weekly, monthly, and overall contribution rankings and guide participants to send more virtual gifts | This feature is relatively simple. Data are mainly generated through the server and displayed in the front end. |
| Guardian rankings | A guardian level is determined by the number of consecutive days for which a participant has guarded the host. | Precise calculation logic is needed to prevent participants from losing interest due to a rapid rise or decline in the rankings. |
| Special entry effects | Special effects include golden flashes and virtual vehicles, which appear when participants enter the live streaming room if they're guardians or have purchased the membership or the virtual vehicles. | The amount of special effects needs to be strictly controlled. The frequency of special effects will largely affect the live streaming effects and participants' sense of satisfaction. |
| Consecutive virtual gifting | Enhance participants' sense of achievement and satisfaction by keeping sending virtual gifts within a certain period of time | Virtual gifting is an important feature of live streaming. The standard of a good virtual gifting experience is to make sure that participants will see the effects in time after sending a gift. |
| Platform notification on virtual gifting | When a participant sends a luxury gift, a platform notification will be displayed on rolling screens, so as to gratify participant's vanity and make him/her happy | A high requirement on back-end design is needed since the virtual gifting will be notified to all online users timely on the platform and the communication has to be smooth. |
Participant-serving features
Participants watch live streaming for a certain goal. For example, they watch social live streaming and video game live streaming to seek happiness, watch live stream shopping to buy valuable goods, or watch teaching live streaming to acquire knowledge.
To serve participants well, we should provide the features needed by them according to their purposes.
For detailed features and functions, see the table below:
| Feature | Function | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Face beautification | Face beautification will largely affect participants' experience and determines how long they will stay. | Face beautification can be divided into several types, such as skin beautification, face shape retouch, virtual makeups, and stickers. The adjustment and optimization of relevant technologies are required. |
| Bullet chat | Bullet chat is an important way for interactions between participants and hosts, as well as for hosts to create content. | In live streaming, there's a 3-5 seconds time lag between the hosts' video and bullet chat. I'll detail some solutions in the following articles. |
| IM private message | Private message is an important way for participants to establish contact with hosts; meanwhile, hosts can send private messages to participants who meet a certain criterion in virtual gifting. | Upon a specific setting in the back end, if the virtual gifts participants sent to the hosts have reached a designated amount, they will receive a business card from hosts and are allowed to send private messages. |
| Co-hosting with participants | Co-hosting with participants is usually applied in a private room because participants are usually too shy to talk with a host in an open room. | Currently, multiple approaches are available to promote online chat with participants, such as avatar virtual live streaming, which I will talk about in other articles. |
| Virtual vehicles | Special effects that can make participants stand out can gratify their vanity. | The amount of special effects needs to be strictly controlled. The frequency of special effects will largely affect the live streaming effects and participants' sense of satisfaction. |
| Rolling screen | Notifications of luxury virtual gifts will appear on rolling screens, which can be seen on the whole platform. This will bring a great sense of satisfaction to participants. | As rolling screens are available to all participants, if the architecture or logic is not reasonable, the server may easily crash. More explanations will be detailed in a separate article. |
| Virtual gifting | Virtual gifting is an important way for participants to attract a host's attention. Many of hosts' rights are determined by the number of virtual gifts they have received. | To ensure the success rate, the seemingly-simple virtual gifting actually requires a lot of technical support. |
| Virtual gifting with special effects | Virtual gifting with special effects builds a strong connection between participants and hosts. With the continuous improvement of mobile phones' performance, the effects of virtual gifts appear increasingly beautiful. | The technical difficulties in realizing this feature are to produce amazing effects with fewer resources and render with less memory consumption. |
| Red envelope | Red envelope is an effective way to attract participants to stay in a live streaming room. | The logic of this feature is very simple, yet it's complex to prevent participants from maliciously collecting red envelopes. |
| Live streaming games | Live streaming games will boost interaction between participants and hosts and make the live streaming more fun. | Live streaming games can be enabled using the web configurator. Many companies provide mature solutions that can be accessed within a short period, and I will introduce this in a separate article. |
| Live streaming shopping cart | Live streaming shopping cart is an important feature that enables participants to buy fair-priced products. | Live stream shopping cart can be enabled using the web configurator, which allows rapid product list updating. |
Summary
In this article, I listed a number of novel and interesting features of live streaming. To elaborate on the effects and technical enablement of the features, I'll publish more articles in the future.
If you are engaged or interested in the live streaming industry, follow me or join ZEGOCLOUD's Discord for the latest information about audio and video technologies.
If you want to understand live streaming technologies or look forward to my explanation, leave me a comment!
Top comments (2)
Thanks for this. What is the red envelope feature?
In order to increase the stickiness of fans, the host will randomly distribute benefits in the live streaming room, which can be gold coins or gifts from the live streaming platform