Let us all face it! The worldwide pandemic has had a significant impact on the events business. Thousands of events had been cancelled or postponed as a result of this. But there is a silver lining. Some businesses have found success using online Virtual Events Software. Google Cloud Next ’20 was the first conference to be streamed live on a virtual event platform, and its success led Oracle, Adobe, and Cisco to host their digital-first event.
Even major cross-industry conferences, such as Collision and SaaS Global Forum, began to use live streaming events in 2020. The only way to organise an event while maintaining participants’ safety and health were to use live streaming Virtual Events Software. In addition, virtual event platforms could assist event organisers in meeting financial commitments and minimising losses incurred due to the worldwide epidemic.
What Does This Imply?
Live streaming has become a must-have feature for all Virtual Events Software, whether Web or mobile. But what if this functionality isn’t available in your event app? Users will eventually migrate to software vendors that offer live streaming, so be prepared with the latest Virtual Events Software. In a different case, you bolster the app with live broadcasting to avoid losing customers and revenue.
Regardless of the scenario you choose, we’re here to tell you about an updated feature list for a Virtual Events Software platform and the technologies that may be used to combine them.
The Reason For The Drift
The introduction of live streaming technology is transforming the events business from the inside. Here’s how it’s done:
More Possibilities
When everything, from ticket sales to email marketing data, is stored in a Virtual Events Software, organising, promoting, and running an event requires less manual work. Visitors may also access the recorded broadcast and discuss it with other attendees in real-time using the virtual events platform’s live chat feature. As a result, such platforms can extend the life of an event.
The Emergence of A Novel Business Model
Using a virtual event platform to organise conferences or trade exhibitions is less expensive than doing them in person. Boosts, stage rentals, and pricey equipment are no longer necessary. As a result, event organisers should use new pricing structures for video broadcasts and spend more money on marketing efforts to reach a larger audience.
Event Hybrids
Organisers will use hybrid events, stage a live event, and provide live-streaming capabilities to extend their reach and enrich a larger audience by the time offline events are a safe place to come.
The event business, as well as customer demand, is changing due to living streaming technology in the Virtual Events Software. Immersive event experiences, networking possibilities, and connectivity with sales and marketing tools are now among the essential features of an event management platform. There are software developers like WebRock Media who can accommodate this requirement.
The Enhanced Features
Meeting apps are a relatively young market. However, you will be competing against some compelling players specialising in certain event kinds. So, let’s take a closer look at your rivals.
Platforms for Tradeshows
Certain Virtual Events Software providers may replicate the in-person experience of attending large conferences and trade exhibits. Virtual event systems provide digital exhibition halls, chatrooms, sponsor boosts, and breakout spaces.
Platforms For Online Meetings
It’s not only us that believe in leveraging social media to keep attendees engaged. As an illustration, on the 5th of June, 2019, the Virtual Events Software- ‘Hopin’ was introduced.
Hopin held 28,248 events during the worldwide shutdown, compared to 1070 in January 2020.
Aside from texting and social sharing, that site includes functional capabilities for event planners. For example, you can build a virtual conference in minutes, modify the design branding, sell tickets, and see data using Hopin Virtual Events Software.
Apps for Video Calling
These Virtual Events Software developers cater to small digital events such as seminars, business meetings, group discussions, etc. As a result, they are missing marketing and sales tools and a payment channel. Basic video call features include live streaming, event scheduling in the built-in Google Calendar, sharing screens, and recording meetings in apps like Zoom and Vimeo.
As you can see, Virtual Events Software Development Companies provide considerably more than just video streaming. So now is the time to think about a feature list for your event management software.
Features Of Virtual Events Software That You Should Know About
Following are the list of the most demanded features based on our analysis of existing Virtual Events Software:
Profile of Attendees
Users must first register with the event management platform, either by email and password or by social logins like Facebook or Linkedin, before they may participate in online events. They are then given access to a personal profile, which they must fill up with their details.
Sign Up
Organisers may establish public or invitation-only online events, write a description, choose a start and end time, and build a timetable.
Booth For Speakers
If you want to build a worldwide event streaming platform with numerous presenters, this capability is a must-have in your Virtual Events Software. Every speaker creates a profile and updates it as needed.
Event Page
The description of the online event, the date and time, a progress bar with remaining time, host information with links to their social network accounts, the number of registered attendees, and a register button may all be found here.
Gateway For Payments
Event attendees may pay with credit cards, PayPal, or Google Pay, and organisers get funds in their bank accounts.
Live Chat
Participants can ask questions to the speaker and engage with them using a built-in live chat feature.
Person-to-Person Conversation
Visitors and speakers can use private chat rooms in addition to group discussions.
Recording
This is a valuable feature for increasing audience participation. The Virtual Events Software records streaming videos, produce a link to the recorded video sessions and distributes it to guests instantly.
Social Media Sharing
For example, on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter, users may share events, speakers and schedule them.
Integrations
Adding value to organisers is as simple as combining email marketing (Mailchimp) with sales tools (Salesforce). Organisers may run advertising, track their success, and assess results without ever leaving your platform when using such integrations on the Virtual Events Software.
Metrics and Report Generation
Organizers may access data such as the number of registered users, total ticket sales, and other reports in this section.
The virtual event software connects to the camera and microphone and sends video and audio data to participants.
Live-Streaming
For any Virtual Events Software, live streaming is a must-have feature. However, developing one is not as easy as it seems. If many users join the broadcast, the quality of the video might suffer. Here is where the expertise of WebRock Media comes into play. Our team expertise gives you an app with a flawless user experience
Streaming Video Technology Used In Virtual Event Software
To maintain good video quality, Virtual Events Software demands a lot of processing power. It also requires resources to receive, encode, and distribute videos from a single source to a large number of users. So let’s take a look at the technology that makes high-definition video streaming possible in the app.
The virtual event app’s backend will be powered by all technologies listed below. This section of the programme is not accessible to the user but is instead accessible to the developer. As a refresher, let’s look at how video streaming works.
Every video follows this process
Step 1: Take a picture.
The camera records visual data as well as raw video data.
Step 2: Segmentation.
Videos are large files with a lot of digital data that require a long time to transfer over the Internet. As a result, streaming videos are broken up into smaller, 2-3 second segments.
Step 3: Compression and Encoding
Compression is the process of removing unnecessary video data that does not vary from one brief video fragment to the next. Encoding refers to the conversion of streaming data’s video format to a standard video format (H.264, VP9, AV1, HEVC)
Step 4: CDN Caching and Distribution
Streaming from an original server in a specific geographic region may cause delays and raise the demand on the server. Instead of using an actual server, a CDN (Material Delivery Network) of servers that store and provide the content is required to eliminate video delays. CDN removes the need for an original server to transmit live feeds and makes them available to a large number of viewers in multiple regions with negligible latency.
Step 5: Playback and Decoding
The user’s device receives streaming data from the CDN, encodes it, and decompresses it. The video is then played using a browser-based video player that decodes the fragmented portions.
How To Integrate These Procedures Into The Virtual Events Software?
WebRTC is needed to achieve the desired results. The WebRTC protocol is a free and open-source streaming protocol. “open source” refers to a project’s code being freely accessible to anybody. WebRTC uses two-way communications channels to provide real-time audio and video data streaming in Web and native app applications.
However, WebRTC alone would not be sufficient to provide video streaming to Virtual Events Software.
The virtual event platform also requires the following components:
CDN
As previously stated, a CDN guarantees high-quality video broadcasts. Therefore, Google CDN is a content distribution network that we recommend. This integration leverages HTTP(S) Load Balancing as the source of cacheable content, delivering a mix of static and dynamically generated content across a single global IP address.
Cloud-Based Service
This section of the backend architecture will act as an original server, sending compressed video chunks to the CDN. Other app architectural components will be hosted on the cloud. The Google Cloud Platform is the best option in this case.
Database
WebRTC will transmit compressed video data to the app’s cloud database before delivering it to end-users.
Now that you know what the backend needs for video streaming, you may be excited to get things on board! However, your Virtual Events Software may require the use of other technologies. Receive a free consultation with a Virtual Events Software mobile app developer to guarantee that the tech stack matches your app’s demands.
Final Thoughts On Virtual Events Software Development
Due to the worldwide pandemic, the way events were held and conducted has undergone a 360-degree shift. Therefore, the best method to hold any event, from small seminars to cross-industry trade exhibitions, is to use Virtual Events Software with live streaming.
Event planners will most likely use hybrid events in the future, combining in-person and digital elements. For example, key speakers will convene in one physical place with a small number of participants, while the rest of the world will watch a live feed from home. As a result, Virtual Events Software will continue to be in great demand for many years to come. To know more about this, get in touch with WebRock Media!