OTT Apps — The complete guide
If you think of yourself as an online entrepreneur, you have undoubtedly heard of OTT apps amid covid days. Are you looking to enter OTT space for Entertainment or Edutech purposes?. Once you have selected your OTT platform — the crucial next step is deciding your user experience and coming up with OTT Apps.
Assuming all of the above is true this comprehensive OTT apps guide is for you.
This guide is a thorough source of information about OTT apps y. It will help you better understand this new app-based video distribution method, and how you can launch your own OTT apps to take your video streaming business to your customers with best in class user experience.
Overview — What is OTT & Why OTT’s are needed?
An OTT app, or over-the-top application, is an app that delivers video content to your smartphone, tablet, or smart TV using the internet rather than the traditional distribution methods of cable or satellite.
These apps allow you to directly stream the videos you love on your favorite devices. Whether it’s a movie, a session with your favorite yoga instructor, or an eLearning class on how to go cave-diving, you can watch it wherever and whenever suits you.
OTT apps are the future of television and online streaming services. It’s a billion-dollar industry that is creating a large movement in how people consume their content. If you’re entering the online streaming service in any way, OTT Web, TV, and mobile apps will definitely play a part in your business. Launching an OTT video streaming app for Web, TV, and mobile devices is one of the strong and perfect ways to grow your video website audience.
These days everything is on-demand. People expect to have access to content whenever they want, and laptop screens aren’t always the ideal place to watch that content. They want to be able to kick back and watch their favorite OTT content on the go on mobile devices or on their flatscreen TVs while they cuddle comfortably with their perfect partner.
The 3 key factors that make OTT video apps so appealing to viewers are — Control, Cost, and Accessibility.
Why OTT apps play a vital role in the media and entertainment business
One of the industries that have seen massive growth in the past few years is that of the OTT platforms and the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace. While other industries have been adversely affected by the pandemic, the OTT platforms have become popular. With social distancing being the new normal and the theatres and multiplexes being closed, people confined in their houses are left with very few options of entertainment. OTT platforms have played a major role in entertaining people amidst these critical times and have clearly taken over the other modes of entertainment.
According to a survey conducted by the mobile marketing platform InMobi in April 2020, 46% of viewers are engrossed in watching online content. Added to this, experts also suggest that the popularity of these platforms could grow further in the future, as television channels may run out of content. According to Paritosh Joshi, Media Consultant and Principal, Provocateur Advisory, “As these channels have been unable to shoot due to the lockdown, they are running old content. In such a scenario, people will gravitate towards OTT to watch fresh content.”
How OTT apps can help many VOD businesses grow by ~35%
We found 2 reasons that help to grow OTT-business by ~35%, they are OTT apps increase conversions — In addition to increasing engagement of your existing users, you also open yourself up to new subscribers (like the growing number of cord-cutters) who are actively searching for new OTT services to subscribing to. OTT apps reduce churn — When your content becomes available on more devices, especially those preferred by your current users, people are more likely to consume a lot more of it. By offering your subscribers OTT apps on multi-screen devices, you’re enabling them to consume your content on the go via their mobile devices. While commuting every day to and from work, while waiting for ordered food in hotels, during their lunch hour, during their children’s games practices, On airplanes (with the offline downloading feature)
What are the benefits of OTT apps?
Just the right usage of technology can take a business/company/brand to immense heights. This is the reason why OTT-enabled utilities such as Netflix, Skype, Whatsapp, Amazon Prime, etc. are playing in shedloads today. Such apps earn various earning models two of which being subscriptions and brand advertisements.
Major benefits of OTT apps are
- Easy Customer Segmentation
- Technological Upperhand
- High-End Efficiency
- A Younger, Wealthier, More Engaging Audience
- Data Transparency and Microtargeting
- Smooth Transition from Traditional Television to OTT Content
What goes into an OTT app?
Before developing and launching an OTT app, you should know a bit about the must-haves for any OTT business. Here are just a few of the main elements and moving parts that go into creating your own OTT app
- A well-built and adaptive video player
- Access to multiple Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
- A comprehensive content management system (CMS) catalog support
- A beautifully branded user interface and website with branding
- Dedicated, equipped, and knowledgeable support network comprising your partners and third-parties
- Gamification & User Engagement
- Option for reward and redemptions
- Secure and seamless payment processing
- Subscription business statistics and video metrics
Discussion on Hybrid V/s Native Apps
Native Apps — A native app is a smartphone application developed specifically for an operating system (think Objective-C or Swift for iOS vs. Java or Kotlin for Android). Since the app is developed within a mature ecosystem following the technical and user experience guidelines of the OS, it not only has the advantage of faster performance but also feels perfect. Native UI allows users to quickly learn the app, Easy to discover in app stores (Apple app store, Play store), Access to device hardware/software (GPS, Location, Shake, Calendar, etc.), Better snappier user experience, etc.
Hybrid Apps — Hybrid applications are, at the core, websites packaged into a native wrapper. They look and feel like a native app, but ultimately outside of the basic frame of the application, they are fueled by a company’s website.
Hybrid app quick wins Profitability(One code base, multiple platforms), Access to various hardware/software capabilities(through plug-ins), Cheaper origination costs, Faster (initial) speed to market.
Basically, a hybrid app is a web app built using HTML5 and JavaScript, wrapped in a native container that loads most of the information on the page as the user navigates through the application (Native apps instead download most of the content when the user first installs the app).
Mobile OS Market Share
Web Browser — % of usage in the market
Smart TV — % of usage in the market
Which OTT apps to launch first for your business
If you have finalized to go ahead and launch your OTT apps. The main apps to choose to launch are:
As per the market share of the usage, at an initial stage, you can launch your OTT apps for iOS, Android for mobile OS, and for the web, it is recommended with Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge and for TV there are options like Tizen, WebOS, Sony Playstation, Roku TV, Fire OS, Android TV, Chromecast, and Apple TV.
To get to the bottom of how to choose the best OTT apps to launch for your business, we compiled a report of OTT app usage data to detect habits, preferences, and patterns. The main take-aways from this report are that:
- Mobile apps allow for the most specific location targeting.
- More than half of OTT app users choose to stream content using mobile apps, meaning Android and iOS video streaming apps are often more urgent to launch.
- In English-speaking markets, iOS has the largest market penetration.
- Half of all TV app users stream using Roku, making it the #1 app to launch if you want to reach your audience on their TVs.
- Android mobile apps have the widest reach worldwide and especially in non-English speaking markets.
OTT app device platform support / Multi-screen support for OTT
The global streaming media devices market is projected to reach a value of $271.8 billion by 2024. Smartphones and tablets, like today, will drive the majority of consumers’ online activity. However, there will be growth in other adjunct devices that will allow users to stream content online. These devices are called connect devices (Fire TV, Apple TV, Xbox, Playstation, Amazon Fire Stick, Chromecast, Android TV, etc.) and work with SmartTVs to stream the content, iOS, and Android smartphones.
Different types of connected TV platforms
It is also called CTV stands for “connected TV” and any television set used to stream video over the internet. These are most often videos that are streamed via apps that are downloaded. Devices that are classified as CTV devices are:
- Smart TV —It is a TV with a built-in internet connection and media platform. This means no additional equipment is needed to stream videos on the TV.
- Connected Device —It is referred to as an OTT device, these are devices that plug directly into your TV and are connected to the internet, which enables apps and video streaming to be used on the television regardless of the TV itself is a smart TV. Examples include Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast, Xbox, and more.
- Gaming Consoles — Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Playstation are essentially acting as connected devices with built-in app stores for streaming video content to your television.
Virtual Reality for OTT
Wearable Devices explores the future of AR and VR. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have exciting potential in the future of gaming, marketing, e-commerce, education, and many other fields. Both technologies are known for their enriched experience that brings together a virtual world and the real one with enhanced, 3-D visuals.
VR provides an immersive experience that elevates brand engagement. It allows content distributors to understand their experience patterns so they can push relevant content and better their monetization models based on the advertisement of products and services.
Examples for Virtual Reality(VR) implies a complete immersion experience that shuts out the physical world. Using VR devices such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Google Cardboard, users can be transported into a number of real-world imagined environments. OTT 3D Virtual theatres are coming to the market now.
How to create and launch your own OTT apps for your business
Assuming that all your requirements are aligned in a row: your content, your audience, your business strategy, and your vision. You even know which apps you’re going to launch.
Assuming you can’t develop these OTT apps yourself, you have 2 main options:
- Option 1: Hire an app developer — Hiring someone to develop your OTT apps is an obvious one, but it can be very expensive.
- Option 2 (recommended): Lease an app from an OTT platform provider — Leasing is one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to create an OTT app. This method means you’ll rent the OTT services of an OTT platform company that already has white-labeled OTT apps for a variety of devices, CDNs, and hosting in place.
Here’s how launching an OTT app works:
- You set up an account and place an order for your app
- You get your video website ready by adding content
- You set up your app developer account
- You provide your app requirements — the assets needed to build your app
- We build your app and have it available for you to test
- We submit your app for approval in the App Store
- After it’s published, you launch it to your customers
How to find the perfect OTT app provider for you
Different video monetization and OTT platform providers offer different features at different price points. But if you really want to start researching and learning about all your OTT platform provider options, here’s a check-list we put together to get you started:
The perfect OTT platform provider will:
- allow you to fully customize your streaming website
- provide you with a video streaming website, alongside your apps
- gives you full audience ownership
- allow you to accept global payments
- offer free updates and maintenance for your apps
- be a technically hands-off solution for you
- take less than 3 months to develop and launch your OTT apps
Our OTT App development expertise includes
At Mobiotics, we build your OTT apps from scratch, fully branded just for you. We develop various OTT apps as per your target audience usage with customization in a faster and cost-effective manner. All you need to do is provide us with the details like your logo and brand colors. We then launch it, run it, and maintain it for as lo8987ng as it’s live –you don’t have to do a thing.
All of our apps come white-labeled and can be customized to fit your branding.
After understanding everything you learned today, we recommend you start thinking about how you will incorporate OTT apps into your business.
You can start off by getting in touch with one of our highly knowledgeable OTT specialists to see if OTT apps are right for you.
Click here to book a 15 Min demo with us to know how OTT Apps works.
For more information about our product and services please feel free to get in touch with us.
Call us at +91 9620209869, or write an email to the sales@mobiotics.com
