OTT App Development – Everything You Need to Know About OTT Apps
Over-The-Top (OTT) apps are the new avenues for Content Creators, Networks and Communities to live stream your content, be it a concert or an event, or conferences. With a likely captive audience of nearly $15 billion by 2030 and a potential video streaming market size of $12.5 billion and an audio streaming market of $2.5 million (Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (Mbit) 2021), OTT platforms are the future digital economy in India.
When you launch your own OTT app using ott platform providers you become a successful early adopter with OTT solution providing back-end support!
If you already have an OTT app for your business then here are some ways you should adopt it to multiply your revenues!
What is an OTT App?
OTT Apps are online platforms for streaming ‘premium content’ to user screens, without using satellite TV or cable systems, delivered purely over the internet in the form of Video, Audio, Messaging and VOIP. But the differentiator between OTT apps and social video platforms like YouTube is the ‘premium’ value of the content and the experience it delivers on the internet.
How will OTT Apps add to your business?
Four optimizations OTT Apps bring to your business are – growing your viewer base, increasing revenue flow, and lowering costs apart from engaging directly with the customer base. These are discussed in detail below:
- Increase in viewer base – In 2020 OTT had grown by $1.7 billion, with Indians becoming the second-highest online video per person
- Surveys show that online videos will soon generate 82-percent of internet traffic
- Indian internet penetration will add viewers from 22 vernacular languages
- Diversified consumer base – Urban and regional consumers on OTT averaging daily consumption of 5 hours approx (Mbit report,2021).
2. Monetization is simplified
OTT platform apps provide multiple monetization avenues:
- Transactional – per view payment
- Advertisements – by businesses to offer content for the non-paying consumer
- Subscriptions – prepayment to access premium content
3. Minimal business costs
- Cost to launch OTT service < full-fledged satellite TV channel
- No additional carriage fees, downlinking charges, content delivery fees, and distribution fees.
- OTT costs are
- fixed costs for: platform fee
- the variable cost for storage, streaming encoding
4. Direct Customer Engagement
- Content creators can directly reach audiences
- control distribution, since cable services are eliminated
- Directly message users for discounts
- Notify new releases to the user.
Of the four variants of OTT Apps, video streaming services are redefining entertainment and the most popular video-on-demand apps.
Key UX Features for an OTT Video App platform
Traditional media and entertainment industry business models have fallen apart, with the arrival of Video-on-demand services. Over-the-top streaming is one such VOD that delivers a great User experience.
Here is an overview of the best OTT platform features to enhance your user experience…
The features which shall make your OTT video streaming a great user experience are:
- Availability of content in national and regional languages – This shall override traditional geographic barriers and gain global viewership
- Search bar – allows intuitive use of the platform, with drop-down menus being a critical form factor
- User profile – For details such as age, nationality, and gender to modify/filter content preferences and data analytics
- Watchlist – a feature that notifies users of the availability of wait-listed content
- Social features – which includes sharing button will increase active users via Facebook, Instagram, and more
- Screen mirroring – should be a feature for watching content on different screens.
- In-app purchases – should be included for Subscription Video on Demand business model
How to develop an OTT app with Video features?
Having understood the advantages and features which make great OTT UX, three options can be used for OTT apps development:
- In-house app development
- Outsourcing app development
- SaaP Based OTT Solution
OTT App development should be defined by the following factors:
-
Identify the niche in which you want to launch your app
General content OTT apps are common. What you need is a niche, like sports events or particular sport to develop ‘premium’ content for the OTT experience. You will also have to determine the technology stack you want to use to video stream.
2. Build Your Content Repository
Quality, curated content is the key differentiator of ott apps and using content strategy will help in building exceptional content and viewership.
3. Choose a Business Model:
OTT video streaming offers three unique revenue streams:
- SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand): like Netflix and Amazon Prime, where viewers pre-pay and enjoy the content. Revenue growth is highest in this model
- TVOD (Transactional Video on Demand): Pay as you use model will be pricer for the user
- AVOD (Ad-Supported Video on Demand): where businesses advertise between content to gain user attention
Hence, the Subscription revenue (SVOD), Advertising Revenue (AVOD) or Transaction Video revenue (TVOD) or a stand-alone hybrid model will add revenue streams to your business.
Choose Branded OTT solution to launch OTT app
Established, reputed OTT app developers are the key to your successful OTT app launch. Experienced SaaS OTT providers will ensure features are easy to use and cost-effective for your business to sustain. It should support all-in-one platforms, launch web, TV, and mobile apps, maintain the service themselves, handle millions of users, custom-build features, and have no hidden charges.
Conclusion
OTT apps with premium content, seamless user experience on the app, and quality streaming technology will garner a loyal viewer base. You can optimize your revenue on the OTT app if you are the best provider in your niche. To achieve these goals, choose a partner ott app development company that matches your financial outlay and the service quality you aspire to deliver on your OTT app.
