How do most of us watch movies, follow the news, and listen to music these days? We engage with media and entertainment (M&E) online via various digital devices like smartphones, PCs, and tablets. These M&E ecosystems and devices are mostly powered by entertainment industry software.
Media and entertainment apps and technology keep viewers entertained and updated with content like streaming movies and local news. For businesses, M&E technologies enable startups and enterprises to attract loyal fan bases and keep them engaged as viewers and subscribers.
Superior media and entertainment solutions rely on an innovative modular design, real-time data, and analytics. These products include popular apps for streaming movies, television, and music. Over the last decade, these apps have changed how we consume entertainment and replaced traditional DVDs and CDs.
The U.S. media and entertainment market represents a third of the global M&E industry at $717 billion. This industry covers radio, publishing, games, ads, TV shows, movies, music, ancillary goods, and services. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the industry trend is showing a rapid return to growth, with the U.S. holding the highest market share. Forecast to achieve roughly $5099 million by 2030, media and entertainment solutions carry huge potential.
The top nine technology trends in the M&E industry
Following are nine top trends driving software-powered technology trends in the M&E industry:
- Direct-to-consumer (D2C) video streaming
- Augmented reality and virtual reality
- eSports broadcasting trends
- Game boosting
- AI-driven content personalization
- Music streaming services
- Popular social media apps
- Event apps
- OTT content advertisements
With global internet access on the rise, the popularity of D2C video streaming is expected to increase, along with the demand for diverse, meaningful, high-quality video content. For example, Disney was the first major studio to retract its content from broker platforms like Netflix and now offers content independently in a D2C channel through its video-on-demand (VOD) streaming service Disney Plus. D2C empowers M&E companies to capitalize on these emerging technology trends by (1) reshuffling content; and (2) offering multiple media formats including music, movies, and TV shows on a single D2C platform.
The market for OTT (over-the-top) content advertising is going through big changes as well. Viewers on popular streaming platforms like YouTube can opt to skip advertisements (by clicking “Skip Ads”), but even those few seconds can slow down the viewing experience and annoy users. To avoid frustrating its viewers, YouTube has launched its ad-free version, YouTube Premium.
The millennial and Gen-Z content consumers of today are digitally savvy. By now, most know that companies are using artificial intelligence (AI) to create unique user profiles on them. Not only does the content consumer of today not mind the collection of data about them, but they’ll also happily pay more for AI-driven personalization that tailors products, ads, and services to their tastes. This license to collect data empowers AI and machine learning algorithms to become ever more efficient in predicting user behavior.
How Outsourcing Can Address the M&E Industry Challenges
The M&E industry is tasked with delivering user-appropriate information and content to viewers quickly and seamlessly in a complex technological environment. Fortunately, rapid innovations in AI and machine learning are enabling these companies to deliver increasingly sophisticated content experiences to their users.
With new M&E providers entering the marketplace at breakneck speed, competition is fierce. M&E providers must finetune their marketing and financing strategies while remaining technologically competitive to hold and gain market share. The key is to align with a leading software development outsourcing partner that understands both the M&E industry and the savvy consumer.
Just how complex is the technology ecosystem for today’s M&E industry? Modern software platforms require the integration of multiple, open-source technologies, tools, and platforms, e.g.:
- Computer programing and coding via .Net (a free, cross-platform, open source developer platform), Java, PHP, and Javascript.
- Mobile development tools like Flutter and Apache; databases like MySQL and Oracle.
- Cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP; video platforms like Brightcove.
- Transcoding tools like AWS Elemental and Vantage.
- Media players like JW Player and THEO Player.
- CDN (content delivery networks) like Akamai and AWS CloudFront.
- DRM controls like FairPlay and PlayReady.
- Analytics like Google Analytics and Nielsen.
When developing a mobile app, it’s important your partner with a software development provider with the experience to choose the right content development network (CDN). The technologies need to use the latest mobile application development tools. Building feature-rich native and cross-platform apps for mobile phones and tablets is critical to boosting your users’ growth and retention rates.
When working with a developer to build a video transcoding tool with digital rights protection, you’ll want to create a powerful, cloud-based platform for both live streams and pre-recorded clips. You’ll want a skilled software partner who can either build your media asset management solutions with advanced DRP or use an off-the-shelf product that supports your company’s content management process and business development strategy.
We help you win M&E market share
When you work with Distillery, you don’t need to worry about the growing complexity of the technology landscape. Our experienced team manages resources cost-effectively to help you win customers and beat the competition in today’s M&E market.
For six years, our team at Distillery Tech has provided technology solutions for startups, SMBs, and enterprises of all shapes and sizes. Specifically:
- IT staff augmentation: engineering talent to scale, fully integrated with our client’s teams, tech, and processes.
- Delivery teams: autonomous, remote teams designed to deliver product and technology solutions.
- Custom software development: end-to-end software development tailored to our client’s unique business needs.
To create a successful media and entertainment app for iOS, Android, or web-powered services, you need a blend of exceptional UX design and superior engineering. That’s our “sweet spot.” We help our clients grow by providing a scalable workforce of educated and experienced engineers. Our developers can function as a short-term or long-term solution for your development needs with highly flexible options for engagements.
M&E organizations needing to scale their operations and engineering capacity often have trouble finding the right talent within their local market. Distillery reduces the hassle and headache by providing a team of experienced engineers — with no need for expensive, time-consuming training of internal staff. Our development centers are offshore, so the resources we provide allow companies to reduce costs without compromising the quality of work.
The quality of our engineering talent is what sets us apart. Just ask our clients who see us as a high-touch, integrated partner with their team vs. a vendor.
Please contact us today to discuss your M&E industry software needs.