Platform strategy now spans four business models at once: OTT, SVOD, AVOD, and FAST. This category covers recommendation engines, content discovery, CTV app experience, player SDKs, and the subscriber engagement data that tells you whether a feature actually worked.
Agora details how its real-time engagement platform helps creators attract and monetize 'superfans' through interactive live streaming, video calling, and chat features. The platform enables embedded voice and video capabilities in any application to enhance audience interaction and build loyal fanbases. Agora aims to turn on-demand content into live experiences through its real-time engagement layer.
YouTube generated $40.4 billion in advertising revenue in 2025, surpassing the combined revenue of major media companies. This article delves into YouTube's three-layer model for its sports business, highlighting its strategy for audience growth and revenue generation beyond traditional rights acquisition, emphasizing its platform capabilities. This approach is distinct from competitors who focus primarily on acquiring sports rights.
Lenovo is deploying an AI-powered infrastructure platform for the FIFA World Cup 2026, featuring servers at the International Broadcast Center in Dallas to enable ultra-low-latency IPTV distribution and operational control. This infrastructure reduces IPTV delays to under five seconds for live match action and synchronized viewing experiences across venues, leveraging ThinkSystem SR635 V3 servers.
NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Michigan International Speedway on June 6th will be exclusively streamed live on Prime Video, bypassing traditional TV broadcasts. This marks Amazon's continued role in airing all Cup Series practice and qualifying for the first half of the season, with a few exclusions.
Agora has published a solution guide outlining how integrating chat and messaging features can enhance in-app engagement and user retention in social apps. The guide emphasizes that messaging is a primary driver of user retention, contributing to a 24% retention rate after 30 days among top social apps. It details how implementing scalable, flexible, and feature-rich messaging solutions can lead to faster time to market and cost-effectiveness.
Agora's Developer Evangelist, Hermes Frangoudis, authored a detailed comparison of WebAR and native AR application development. The article discusses their technical implementations, user experience trade-offs, and market implications, highlighting how each approach uses JavaScript and addresses current limitations and future possibilities in augmented reality, including potential roles for cloud rendering and real-time networking in AR experiences.
Agora has launched new Media Services extensions, enhancing its streaming environment with stream recording and import/export capabilities. The platform offers a one-stop solution for live streaming, recording, and media gateway functions, addressing the complexity of integrating multiple vendor solutions. These services leverage Agora's global real-time network for scalable and reliable video and audio delivery, and include AI-powered features for enhanced user experience.
ARUtility, a company focused on construction site safety using augmented reality and geographical data, selected Agora's SDK for Unity to integrate real-time communication features. The solution enables remote consultation over shared 3D views of job sites, enhancing safety and efficiency by allowing field staff and office staff to collaborate with AR annotations. Agora's platform provides the robust, low-latency network needed for ARUtility's advanced communication capabilities.
MLS and Apple renegotiated their original 10-year, $2.5 billion streaming deal, shortening it by 3.5 years and eliminating the requirement for MLS Season Pass, making games available to all Apple TV subscribers at no extra cost. This decision, along with securing an additional $50 million for the league, aims to address challenges in audience growth and broad distribution for MLS.
Amazon Prime Video will exclusively stream the NFL Week 14 game between the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions on Thursday, December 4, at 8:15 p.m. ET. This event emphasizes the growing trend of major sports content migrating to streaming platforms, an important shift for industry professionals to monitor.
Infuse users are requesting support for HDR Vivid, an open HDR standard with dynamic metadata, to enable proper tone-mapping on Apple devices. The current Infuse player, developed by Firecore, falls back to HDR10 because it cannot parse the HDR Vivid dynamic metadata from HEVC/H.265 streams. Adding this support would allow Infuse to display HDR Vivid content more accurately, which is gaining traction with streaming platforms and encoding communities in Asia.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced expanded broadcast and streaming plans for the Women's T20 World Cup 2026, including distributing content in 14 languages and new free-to-air partnerships. This initiative involves numerous streaming platforms and broadcasters globally, aiming to maximize accessibility. ICC.tv will also stream matches live, alongside official YouTube and Facebook channels.
Google is exploring using aggregated residential solar-plus-storage systems, known as "virtual power plants," to meet the energy demands of its AI data centers. This approach offers a decentralized alternative to traditional power sources for its infrastructure. The initiative is in its early stages as Google evaluates how these resources could support the grid during high demand.
Live Nation's Veeps streaming service is expanding its live sports content by partnering with Major League Wrestling to offer free global livestreams of MLW Fusion. The partnership will also include quarterly pay-per-views and exclusive merchandise drops via Veeps' direct-to-fan commerce infrastructure. This move further diversifies Veeps, which launched as a concert-focused platform, into new programming categories.
A 2026 review of Twitch highlights new features like 2K streaming, dual format support for vertical and horizontal video, and AI-powered moderation tools. Despite these technical advancements, the platform faces challenges including slow customer support, login issues, and high mobile subscription costs. The article suggests that while Twitch maintains strong community features, its user experience is hampered by unresolved operational problems.
EpiTek, a South African edtech SaaS platform, has partnered with Agora to integrate live virtual classroom functionality into its digital learning platform. This collaboration aims to enhance access to online education and training in Africa by providing interactive streaming and conferencing capabilities for students and educators. Agora's real-time communication SDKs enabled EpiTek to quickly integrate live features into its end-to-end platform.
Paramount Global is shutting down its standalone BET+ streaming service, migrating its content to Paramount+ to consolidate its Black-focused programming. Simultaneously, local TV blackouts are increasing due to station owner consolidation, prompting Sinclair Broadcast Group to promote ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) for free over-the-air television to address these industry pressures.
BoxCast provides five strategies for organizations to enhance their media streaming, focusing on simplified production through PTZ cameras, investment in dedicated audio mixing, and continuous team training. The article also suggests exploring custom OTT apps for broader reach and maintaining active communication with streaming providers to leverage new features and workflows.
Research has revealed that Bright Data's SDK, integrated into consumer apps on devices like smart TVs, transforms these devices into web-scraping exit nodes for the AI industry. This process leverages residential IPs to bypass anti-bot measures from cybersecurity firms and can use up to 200 GB of proxy traffic per month, even bypassing VPNs on iOS devices. While platforms like Google, Amazon, and Roku have restricted such SDKs, Bright Data continues to support systems like Samsung's Tizen and LG's webOS.
ESPN is launching a standalone live sports streaming service and an enhanced app on August 21 for $29.99/month, offering 47,000 live events annually. This move intensifies competition in the live sports streaming market, with offerings also emerging from Comcast and DirecTV. The service will feature personalization, multiview, betting info, and fantasy sports integrations, along with content from multiple ESPN linear channels and new NFL and WWE deals.
NRL broadcast rights negotiations in Australia are set to reshape the local TV landscape, with significant implications for Foxtel and Nine Entertainment's Stan. The deal could cement Stan's position as a major sports streaming player or reinforce Foxtel's dominance, depending on which broadcaster secures the rights. The outcome will impact the competitive landscape for subscription streaming services and advertising models in the region.
Agora details how modern chat tools can boost user engagement and retention in software applications, emphasizing features like multimedia sharing, conversational elements, and community-building group chats. The article highlights that integrating real-time chat with live video and audio can create more immersive experiences and open new monetization avenues, recommending Agora Chat for these capabilities.
Agora published a detailed tutorial on integrating its Voice SDK into Unity mobile games to enable cross-platform voice chat. The article uses the Tanks!!! reference project to demonstrate step-by-step how developers can add real-time communication features to their multiplayer titles on both iOS and Android platforms.
Agora was named a finalist for The EdTech Awards 2023 for its Flexible Classroom, a low-code solution powered by Agora's Real-Time Engagement (RTE) technology. This solution aims to create scalable and customizable online classrooms, enhancing learning experiences through features like low-latency communication, hand-raising, live polling, and pop-up quizzes.
Agora offers a Broadcast Streaming API that supports up to 4K video at 60fps and 192kbps audio with global coverage in over 200 countries. It includes features like cloud recording, stream pulling, AI extensions, and real-time troubleshooting for live video streams. The API is designed for one-to-many streaming use cases such as live events, webinars, gaming, and media broadcasts, built on Agora’s global Software-Defined Real-Time Network (SD-RTN®) for low latency and scalability.
Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate now supports new 32vCPU compute configurations and up to 244 GiB memory for both x86 and ARM workloads. This enhancement allows streaming professionals to deploy larger containers and scale compute-intensive applications, supporting high-performance computing, large-scale data processing, and AI inference tasks. The new configurations are available across all AWS commercial and GovCloud regions, with existing Compute Savings Plans automatically applying.
Fox One is implementing new product features and enhancements ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, including 4K streaming and generative AI for content summaries and user guides. The platform aims to attract 150 million viewers and convert sports fans into broader content consumers through updated user interfaces, multiview streams, and interactive camera angles. These updates represent a significant product moment for Fox One, with plans to extend features to other major sporting events and refine personalized video delivery.
Agora offers a live shopping solution leveraging its scalable global network for interactive live streaming e-commerce, designed to increase engagement and reduce cart abandonment. The platform includes features like live bidding, social chat, real-time data, multi-camera angles, low latency, and extends to other interactive live streaming use cases such as audio streaming, education, and metaverse applications. Additionally, Agora is building out a multimodal AI studio to enable real-time AI experiences like speech-to-text and text-to-speech for various applications, including conversational AI and content moderation.
Paramount+ has secured exclusive Canadian rights to UFC's 13 numbered events for six years, starting in 2027. This deal expands Paramount's existing UFC partnership into Canada, eliminating the pay-per-view model for these events. The agreement signifies a strategic move in sports content distribution for the Paramount streaming platform.
Fora Soft's engineering team provides a monthly field report with insights from debugging WebRTC, LiveKit, and real-time video in production. This report is based on their extensive experience in shipping telemedicine, e-learning, OTT, and voice-AI systems since 2005.
TGG Entertainment announced its vision for a new TV service targeted at the Asian market, offering freemium and premium tiers with global and local content. The service plans to provide a white-label option for telcos, integrate Web3 technologies, and offer diverse ad options to industry partners, emphasizing a mobile-first and user-centric approach.
Synamedia highlights its comprehensive suite of video streaming solutions for the B2B market, encompassing platforms, advertising, and anti-piracy tools. The company showcases its Senza, Iris, Synamedia Go, and Gravity platforms, alongside ContentArmor Watermarking, Quortex, and Scalable Edge CDN. Synamedia emphasizes its open, scalable, cloud-based offerings and its long-standing expertise in anti-piracy.
Revidd is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop its next-generation OTT and video streaming platforms, with a focus on AI-first product development. The role involves designing and building scalable solutions for VOD, live streaming, and content management, leveraging cloud technologies and AI tools. This job posting signals strategic direction and technical requirements from a video platform vendor.
Kinescope, a Netherlands-based company, is offering an API-first, white-label video player and infrastructure solution for SaaS products, starting from €10/month. The platform aims to provide an alternative to Mux and Cloudflare Stream by including a full feature set, such as DRM and analytics, with usage-based pricing. Kinescope also highlights its native SDKs for various platforms and support for custom delivery domains and multi-tenant branding.
FreeCast Inc. announced partnerships with Via One affiliates, Assist Wireless and enTouch Wireless, to provide its Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) ecosystem for aggregated streaming media services. This collaboration enables the wireless providers to offer branded video services to their combined 385,000 mobile subscribers. FreeCast's PaaS includes content aggregation, FAST channel distribution, subscription management, advertising technologies, and consumer engagement tools.
Panopto offers an enterprise video platform for live streaming that automatically records, captions, and publishes sessions for on-demand access. The platform aims to convert live events, such as all-hands meetings and training sessions, into searchable, long-term resources for internal and external audiences. It integrates with tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Webex to facilitate live streaming and provides analytics on viewer engagement.
YoloCast has released a guide detailing how performing arts organizations can utilize its platform for live streaming orchestra concerts. The guide highlights features such as password protection for ticketed access, VOD archives, AI live subtitles, and options for simulive broadcasts. This white-label streaming solution aims to give orchestras more control over content, monetization, and accessibility for their online audiences.
Pexip, a video conferencing solution provider, highlights that basic encryption is insufficient for secure video meetings in sensitive sectors like healthcare and government, due to strict regulations such as GDPR, NIS2, and DORA. The company advocates for self-hosted solutions, offering organizations greater control over infrastructure, data processing, and encryption keys to meet these evolving regulatory demands. This approach targets use cases where privacy and security have significant consequences, such as patient consultations or government briefings.
FanCode, an Indian sports streaming platform, introduced "FanLounge," a social co-viewing feature designed to increase ARPU by allowing users to host watch parties with integrated voice chat and a 5-minute free grace period for guests. This feature aims to leverage social engagement for new user acquisition at near-zero CAC, monetize existing users, and improve retention. The article details the product thinking, user journey, tech stack components, and success metrics for FanLounge.
Roku is seeking a Live Operations Associate in Cambridge, UK, to manage FAST channel onboarding and ensure channel health within its growing Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television ecosystem. The role involves coordinating launches, managing configurations (EPG, metadata), monitoring pipeline health, and supporting continuous operational improvement and automation. This position highlights Roku's ongoing investment in the technical and operational infrastructure for its FAST offering, involving concepts like encoding, CDN delivery, and ad-tech integration.
Viswanathan Ranganathan, during a Linux Foundation event, presented Netflix's open-source Hollow for decentralized caching to manage GB-scale, read-heavy workloads with microsecond access latency and zero-downtime updates. This approach aims to optimize data delivery in streaming applications by decentralizing caches while centralizing preparation. The discussion covered design trade-offs, delta-based updates for cache optimization, and instant, memory-efficient data refreshes.
Peacock announced it will stream Telemundo's Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. This initiative provides subscribers with a premium, immersive viewing experience for live sports, requiring compatible devices for access. Telemundo Deportes highlighted the commitment to setting a new standard for live sports consumption through these advanced audio and video formats.
Descript is promoting a unified workflow for end-to-end video production, integrating recording, editing, audio cleanup, captioning, clipping, and publishing within a single platform. This strategy aims to reduce friction and version-control issues for content creators, potentially attracting enterprise and agency users and differentiating Descript in the market.
Amazon Cognito now offers multi-Region replication for user identity data, enabling synchronization to a secondary user pool in a standby region. This feature enhances the resilience of authentication systems by allowing failover during regional service disruptions, ensuring continuous user access and authentication. It is available as an add-on for Essentials or Plus feature tiers in various AWS Regions.
Belgacom has upgraded its 24/7 promotional channel, ZOOM, by merging four previous channels into one. The new channel, built using wTVision's ChannelMaker, features automatic playlist imports, graphic secondary event assignment, and full integration with Belgacom's interactive Set-Top Box platform. This enables direct rental access for users from trailers via the red button.
Agora offers real-time audio, video, messaging, and chat solutions for social applications, enabling features like live streaming, co-listening, and online karaoke. The platform enhances these experiences with multimodal AI capabilities, including pre-integrated LLMs, real-time speech-to-text, and text-to-speech. Agora positions itself as a building block provider for interactive social engagement across various verticals, including entertainment, education, and healthcare.
Agora's case study highlights how ARUtility uses its real-time voice, video, and messaging platform, along with Unity SDKs, to create an augmented reality app for locating underground utilities. This collaboration enhances safety and efficiency for industrial workers by providing 3D visualizations of buried infrastructure on job sites. ARUtility chose Agora for its robust, scalable, low-latency network and ease of Unity integration.
Agora has launched a new 3D spatial audio API designed to provide immersive, high-fidelity, and low-latency audio for real-time experiences. This API integrates with Agora’s existing video, voice, and streaming products, supporting various platforms including mobile and desktop. The technology aims to enhance user engagement by simulating natural listening environments for use cases like livecasting, meetings, and music streaming.
wTVision discusses the integration of interactive features into live election and referendum broadcasts, acknowledging the challenges of mixing formal and informal data without confusing audiences. The company suggests integrating social media and using AI to analyze political trends to enhance engagement while maintaining journalistic integrity. This approach aims to change the status quo of electoral coverage without sacrificing seriousness.
wTVision partnered with Imagina US to launch SOI TV, a Social TV service for Hispanic households in the US, utilizing wTVision's ChannelMaker and Studio CG solutions. This new service enables real-time viewer interaction and graphics insertion, showcasing wTVision as a key technology provider. The platform leverages various broadcast hardware and software to achieve its interactive capabilities.
