Video streaming is driving business innovation

The streaming industry’s influence on everyday life continues to grow. Video is projected to account for 82 percent of internet traffic by 2022, a growing share of which will take the form of live streaming (data source: Cisco, Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Trends, 2018-2022).

With adoption rates exploding, use cases proliferating, and video quality continuing to increase, streaming technology has become integral to many companies’ business strategies. It’s also become an intuitive way for consumers to research, engage and contribute.

Competing in today’s content-flooded digital landscape requires reaching users on their terms. Examples of organisations doing just that abound.

Drive-through banking, virtual doctor visits and other forms of customer support now use live video streaming to better engage clients and extend the physical reach of their employees. Whilst haggling with a billing representative over a video call may not entice many, the possibility of live-streaming to a mechanic (and thereby troubleshooting any issues without having to take your car into a shop) probably perks interest.

For many newer companies, streaming is foundational to the very services they offer. Consider Taobao. The Alibaba-owned platform has transformed online shopping by fusing live streaming with e-commerce. Dubbed ‘live commerce’, Taobao predicts that this offering will generate over $500 billion in sales transactions over the next three years (source: Forbes, Amazon Live Is Alibaba’s Live-Streaming Without the Good Bits, March 2019).

Then there’s IoT. Healthcare professionals rely on low-latency video streams for endoscopic surgical procedures, whereas law enforcers use body cams to capture low-light videos in HD. Recently, though, IoT streaming has moved beyond these niche applications and into the consumer world. Popular combinations of IoT and consumer goods include pet monitors, security systems, doorbell cameras, drones and more.

If streaming hasn’t already found its way into your home, it likely will in 2019. According to Cisco, the number of devices connected to the internet will be more than three times the global population by 2022, according to the aforementioned Cisco source. Just take Nest’s word for it: “For everything you need, there’s a Nest Cam.”

And let’s not forget about live-streaming apps. Facebook Live, Periscope, TikTok — the list is extensive. These put the power of live video into the pockets of the masses, meaning that both consuming and creating this content has become second nature.

The ways that video streaming can boost customer experience are truly limitless. By enhancing services and products with real-time video, organisations across all verticals will stay one step ahead of competitors.

IBC Content Everywhere embodies this very concept, and Wowza Media Systems provides the battle-tested software, hardware and services to make live streaming a reality for our customers.

We also ‘nerd out’ on speeding up deployment and helping businesses realise success quickly. That’s why we’re offering Wowza Professional Services to anyone in need of expert help bringing their project to life.

In the end, Wowza makes live streaming work. And we can’t wait to see how our customers will use it next.

Barry Owen is vice president of solutions engineering at Wowza Media Systems