Virtual Event Applications: Benefits, Development Steps, and Tips!

Virtual Event Applications: Benefits, Development Steps, and Tips!
Virtual event software solutions entered the market long back, but their popularity reached its peak during the pandemic. During this phase, thousands of personal as well as corporate events got canceled or postponed, affecting numerous businesses. But then, virtual event applications came into the picture. Organizers conducted countless personal as well as corporate events through these apps. As such, several apps got outstanding attention, which was not even known to the masses, and their downloading spiked.
“Downloads of video conferencing applications were recorded to be 62 million, just in a single week of March 2020, after the pandemic,” as reported by TechCrunch, the renowned online newspaper for technology news. Since then, a plethora of virtual event software apps flooded the market and the face of the online conferencing and virtual event industry changed forever. Event-driven applications continued to be popular and this trend is here to stay.
This post throws light on the fundamental steps to creating a next-gen virtual event software solution. We have also spoken about the significant features of such apps and how they prove advantageous to diverse businesses. So, if you are planning to build a virtual event management app, this post answers all your questions.

Virtual Event Apps and Their Potential Advantages

What is a virtual event? Well, the events that one hosts online allowing the participants to participate or view the event from any corner of the world are called virtual events. These events can be webinars, virtual conferences, internal or external hybrid events, etc. Such digital events have some agenda and are usually expected to be collaborative sessions and are streamed online.
Such digital events are hosted using live-streaming platforms. Here, live streaming is an essential functionality of these apps. Zoom, Webex, Google Meet, Vimeo, Digitell, GoToMeeting, Intrado, Evia, etc. are a few examples of popular platforms and apps.
Take a look at the advantages of these applications!

Safety and Security for All

During the pandemic, online mobile event apps ensured the health and safety of the participants, event organizers, and all the involved staff. Without any need for in-person gatherings, the social distancing norms were maintained.

Better Opportunities

All the details like the number of tickets sold out for events, related email marketing reports, etc. are available on a single application. Besides, the participants can access the pre-recorded events, as per their will and availability. Also, they can chat with other users during live events to build business relationships. Such benefits offer extended opportunities to both app owners as well as participants.

Budget-friendly

Virtual events prove immensely cost-effective as compared to offline events. The event organizers only need to spend on the initial establishment cost. Once they develop a virtual event platform, hosting events become budget-friendly.
In offline events, the event planners have to consider a host of other costs like arranging for expensive equipment, booking a venue, etc. They also have to incur expenses like travel, accommodation, & catering for participants. Thus, with virtual apps, the cost of events is drastically reduced. This approach is particularly advantageous for small-sized organizations, start-ups, and ones with budget constraints.

Flexibility and Scalability

Whether it is a simple sales kickoff meeting, a thought leadership meeting, or any event for that matter; all types of events can be flexibly hosted using these virtual platforms. Attendees from any part of the globe can attend virtual events or meetings at the same time without having to travel in person to the event venue. Besides, event organizers enjoy a lot of flexibility while planning events. They can speedily adjust event schedules and programming as per the need of the hour. This can really help organizers in situations when they come across unexpected changes or disruptions.
The virtual event organizer app approach also benefits individuals with mobility issues or other physical disabilities and find it challenging to attend an offline event. Furthermore, several apps provide the multi-lingual feature as well.

Easier Networking & Better Engagement

Participants don’t have to personally visit a particular location to meet new people. Online chatting options make things much easier. Besides, they can conveniently collect details like the name, profiles, companies, etc. of other professionals in the meeting.
Virtual event platforms can offer multiple user engagement tools like Q&A sessions, live chats, surveys, polls, etc. These functionalities play a crucial role in providing engaging event experiences to attendees. They can interact with other attendees as well as the event content in a more meaningful way.

Feedback Collection and Result Analysis

Online event solutions generate valuable data on attendee behavior, engagement, and preferences. Mobile event apps can track data like the number of participants, the timing when they logged in, what amount they paid, and how, etc. This insightful data gathered are quite useful for result analysis.
Also, these apps allow the participants to provide feedback easily through polls or real-time sessions. Event-related data and attendee feedback help organizers and presenters evaluate the overall performance of the event and identify the areas of improvement. This will help them to make future improvements and tailor the content to accommodate the requirements and preferences of their targeted audience.

Top Features of Virtual Event Apps

  • Event Registration
  • Profile creation of the users
  • Event page for details like event topic, date and time of the event, host details, etc.
  • Speaker booths for multiple speakers to create their profiles and related details
  • Facility to record live sessions and meetings
  • Real-time chatting, one-to-one, and group chatting options
  • Live video streaming option
  • Payment options via PayPal, Google Pay, credit/debit cards, etc.
  • Social media integration for sharing event-related data with other contacts
  • Integrations like sales tools, email marketing, etc.
  • Report generation and analysis
  • Screen sharing
  • Virtual hand raising
  • Mute participants
  • Audience polls

Steps To Architect a Virtual Event Application

Here are the crucial steps required for the creation of an online conference app:
Create the Architecture: Create an architecture that supports the requirements of your event management activities. Consider parameters like the kinds of interactions your app will support, the number of concurrent users, and the specific prerequisites related to data storage and retrieval. You can consider choosing a microservice architecture to facilitate modularity, maintainability, and scalability.
Development of Backend: In the initial development stages itself, build a server for running the application. It is always advisable to create the server from scratch rather than make use of any ready-made technologies.
Designing User Interface: UI marks the first impressions for your virtual conferencing application and hence, it is of utmost importance to thoughtfully design a captivating and intuitive UI.
Android and iOS Compatibility: If you want to reach a wider audience range, your event management mobile app must run on both- Android and iOS devices. For ensuring that your video streaming app supports Android, make use of WebRTC and for iOS, use Swift.

Important Factors to consider during Event App Development

Next, let us look into the three most important aspects you need to consider during the development of a virtual event app- cloud network, video architecture, and content management.

Cloud Network

The virtual conferencing applications come with an integrated data center infrastructure that is strictly supervised, tracked, and regularly modified by the development teams. This cloud network is created for providing global connectivity and for enabling users from all across the globe to connect and participate seamlessly. For example, Zoom has more than 15 data centers globally which are going to be expanding in the coming years.

Video Architecture

Now, the app architecture should be optimized to meet the video requirements for which, four important features must be considered, as given below:
Distributed architecture: This architecture enables the participants to share meetings across the network and allows them to easily join meetings via private communication using the nearest data center. Using a distributed architecture rather than a centralized approach will offer the required scalability to the app so that thousands of viewers can simultaneously get a consistent video experience.
Multimedia Routing: This approach offers the users with various streams of videos from other participants. It also reduces the need for computers’ power and thus, makes the app a greatly scalable system.
Video Encoding and Streaming: Your application should be able to encode and stream video content to attendees in real-time. Event app developers use video encoding techniques for compressing videos into suitable formats for streaming videos. The videos are then streamed to the attendees via the Internet. Usually, event apps use Cloud-based services like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services for handling the activities of encoding and video streaming.
Multi-bitrate Encoding: Every single stream can be altered to several resolutions besides stream routing. Due to this, the need to decode, encode, and optimize the output is removed. This also allows the apps to provide video quality levels depending on the network capabilities and the system.
Service Application Layer: Higher quality of the service application layer ensures optimized audio, video, and screen-sharing for every device and the available bandwidth for offering the best network-wide experience.

Content Management

A virtual event organizing platform requires a content management system for managing the video content that the presenter will display during the event. So, organizers need to upload, organize, and schedule the content for various sessions and track the event. You may also have to integrate the application with third-party systems like registration and payment systems. This way, you can ensure that your attendees can access the content effortlessly.

Concluding Views

Virtual event planning apps help organizers plan and execute events in a more effective way with productive outcomes. At the same time, the attendees also go through a flexible and engaging event experience. However, creating an amazing virtual solution for hosting events is a complex process. You need to plan carefully and follow the correct execution steps. Hence, it’s important to pick the right event app development company and app development resources that are best suited to your use case development needs.

How to select a Competent Mobile App Development Company for your Next Project?

How to select a Competent Mobile App Development Company for your Next Project?
You’ve got a phenomenal mobile app idea and cannot wait to start the development process! Sounds great! However, developing a mobile app is not as easy as it sounds. Before embarking on the app development journey, you need to decide on certain vital factors that can impact your product development process considerably. The top factors are the choice of targeted platforms, tech stacks, and most importantly, the development resources that suit you best. Choosing the best mobile app development company is essential; it decides the success rate of your software development project.
Now, the question is how will you know which mobile app development services are competent and worth investing in. Well, this post discusses the factors and standard practices you need to consider while choosing a development agency for your next project.

Factors to consider while picking a Mobile App Development Company

Check their Portfolio and Customer Reviews

The very first step to selecting the best mobile app development company is checking its portfolio and customer reviews. Here are the reasons! It’s important to determine the quality of the software development partner you are going to work with by checking out their past projects. This way, you’ll be able to understand if they were successful in producing top-quality apps for their previous clients.
You should also take into account whether or not the company can meet your project delivery deadline. You can identify it by thoroughly analyzing their customer reviews. If their reviews indicate that customers are satisfied with their services, then you will have confidence in them that they will be able to produce a high-quality mobile app solution that meets your needs.
Happy customers and an impressive portfolio are positive indicators of a good software development agency.

Domain-specific Experience

Review the apps your would-be software development partner developed in the past and check whether they have worked on use cases similar to yours. Look at the years of experience they have in your domain. Always pick an agency with several years of app development experience. This is because developing an impeccable app solution that aligns with the market requirements is not enough. You need something more to be successful. The end product must also be compatible with your business objectives, resolve some problems that other similar apps aren’t able to, and include some USPs.
Software development firms with domain-specific experience can easily identify the operational bottlenecks in your business and understand the needs of your targeted audience during the discovery phase. This will save you from major pitfalls and add optimum value to your project. Experienced development teams will be able to design the app architecture flawlessly and implement the necessary measures related to data security. For instance, they will know the necessary regulatory compliances mandated for a specific software product category.
They’ll be able to effectively handle any kind of developmental challenge and mid-project crisis no matter how complex they are. This minimizes time and effort during the development phase. Moreover, an application development company that has been in your domain for a long time will be able to provide sound advice on the most profitable add-ons and other product-related aspects. For example, you’ll receive expert guidance on which app monetization strategy will work best for your business use case.
Besides, accomplished mobile app development services have experience in developing solutions for iOS as well as Android. A company that has experience in both platforms can bring a lot to the table.

UI/UX Design Capabilities

Examine the company’s previous work to gain an idea about its UI/UX design capabilities. This is because a major part of your app’s success depends on how the app looks and how effortlessly a user can interact with and navigate through it. Aim to create user interfaces that are easy to use and captivating as well. A unique and clean UI that is consistent in terms of text, shapes, color, etc. is most desirable. It’s the first impression your end customers will have about your business brand.

Choose a Dynamic Team over Individual Developers

It isn’t a good idea to have a single developer manage your project. There are a wide variety of elements required during the development process. A single mobile developer who takes up a project might not be aware of all the elements that need to be included in the final product, nor does the resource have time to include everything. Besides, there are times when the app development responsibilities become too much for one person to handle; which is when multiple specialists are needed.
Hence, you need a dynamic team of experienced designers, developers, testers, and project managers who can guide you smoothly through the development process. Each of these resources is a specialist in their respective areas and you get the best quality of work done.
For example, experienced designers will maintain world-class app design standards customized as per the client’s need and the best mobile app developers will write good-quality codes. Professional testers will follow the standard testing approaches and use the necessary tools to ensure that the final product is free of any bugs or technical issues before launch. A project manager will make sure that the sprints are completed on time and that the client is kept informed on the project’s whereabouts. Other resources will be able to help you with app distribution and maintenance. This way, you get every job done smoothly without much ado.

Technical Expertise

The technology a mobile app development company uses determines what kind of project they are best suited for. Most app development companies offer iPhone and Android apps.
Look for sound technical expertise. The firm should have expertise in working with the latest technologies, tools, programming languages, etc., and be well-versed in software development best practices.
The Mobile app Development Company you choose should have resources who have thorough knowledge and expertise in the following technical areas:
  • Programming languages such as Swift, Kotlin, Java, Objective-C, etc.
  • Mobile operating systems- Android and iOS
  • IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) such as Xcode, Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, etc.
  • UI frameworks like UIKit and Material Design
  • Backend development technologies like Node.js, PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc.
  • API integration capabilities
  • Cloud Services (AWS & Microsoft Azure)
  • Testing Tools like XCTest, Espresso, etc.
  • Security best practices to ensure to protect app’s data
  • CI and CD tools like CircleCI, Jenkins, TravisCI, etc.

Communication and Transparency

Transparent communication and strong project management skills are must-haves. A competent IT firm must keep its clients updated on the project’s progress at every stage of the developmental cycle. The firm should also be available to answer your questions whenever needed and promptly respond to emails. If a communication gap is there between the client and the development firm, the final product may not turn out as per the client’s expectations.
Also, the company should be open to taking timely action if any issues arise and also should accommodate mid-project modification requests based on the need. Usually, software agencies following the agile approach are able to adhere to the aforesaid prerequisites. Also, your technology partner should be open to innovations for making your app stand out.

The Lowest Price is not always the Best

Some business brands have the tendency to settle down for the lowest available price as they have budget considerations. But, the truth is, low-cost vendors are often unable to provide top app developers. So, if you pick the least expensive vendor, the quality of your end product is likely to be below standard. Also, you might end up spending more in the long run. Incompetent resources may land you in a situation where you may have to redevelop the app with other app development resources because the final product didn’t turn out as expected or there are technical glitches.

Non-disclosure Agreement

Imagine a scenario when your app idea gets leaked and inferior-quality duplicates hit the app stores even before your product development process gets over. Such a situation may arise if the outsourcing agency does not adopt adequate security measures. As such, you need to sign a non-disclosure agreement with your would-be software development partner.
Usually, every top mobile app development company complies with this requirement. A non-disclosure agreement states that the app’s concept must remain confidential before the app reaches the app stores. IT agencies that sign this agreement are bound to adopt stringent security measures to protect the mobile app idea and concept.

Post-launch Support & Maintenance

Remember that developing an app is not just about UI/UX designing, coding, and deploying the app successfully to the app stores. The role of your app development firm doesn’t end after the app goes live. You need technical support during the post-launch phase as well to maintain the app.
After deployment, an app might come across issues that need to be fixed at once. Then, when you go live, users send valuable feedback. It’s important to keep these users happy and provide great experiences for them so they continue to use your app and download it. So, most apps follow the best practice of making post-deployment modifications based on the end users’ feedback and updating the app with the latest features whenever needed.
The company you partner with must provide ongoing support and maintenance for your mobile application after it goes live. Continuous support will make sure that your app functions as expected without any issues and remains updated as per the latest trends.
This is the reason why it’s a great idea to choose app development services that offer an end-to-end mobile app development package right from the app ideation stage to the post-launch phase.

In Conclusion

Mobile apps are powerful tools using which you can provide easy access to your products and services to your targeted customers. It is also an effortless way to establish your brand’s presence. But, you can make the best out of these aforementioned advantages, only if your app functions flawlessly, offers new-age features, provides some add-ons that are lacking in similar apps existing in the market, and stays relevant as per the most recent trends.
This is the reason why it’s important to choose the most competent mobile application development company for your upcoming project. And, the factors mentioned in the post will help you to make the right decision. A professionally sound company will fulfill your specific requirements and deliver a top-graded app that aligns with your business goals. Once done with selecting the best-suited mobile app agency, make sure you have a thorough discussion regarding the product development roadmap and the kind of deliverables expected.