In an exclusive interview opportunity with Express Computer, Goutham Vinjamuri, COO and Co-Founder, Quickplay spoke about his views on how AI and ML are helping in enhancing the OTT services experience for its customers, what makes Quickplay different from the other OTT providers in the market and the security measures that they have taken to combat against potential cyber threats.
Edited excerpts:
- How are you leveraging technologies like AI and ML in enhancing OTT services for your customers?
In India, there are over 57 streaming services listed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and as per a study done by comparison website, Finder, 57% of Indians have access to at least one streaming service. In a competitive environment such as this, it is important to understand the viewer’s preferences and interests and recommend the right content at the right time with personalised suggestions. Quickplay’s AI/ML based solution helps increase reach of the content and subscriber engagement.
In the Subscription Video On-Demand (SVOD) business, 20% of the content catalog contributes to 80% of the total watch time. Our AI-powered content metadata discovers micro-genres and plot keywords by analysing the video scenes and closed captions available within the content. This granular content discovery helps in providing a deeper engaging experience for the customer.
Given that 80% of the playback comes from the top 4 carousels on the home screen, it also analyses the customer’s watch patterns and behavioural data and taps into the content metadata to generate hyper-personalised content recommendations such as ‘you may like this’, ‘because you watched’ and ‘recommended for you’. These suggestions help improve the viewer experience and content discoverability.
Beyond content recommendations, the Quickplay platform adopts and develops multiple algorithms and models for measuring subscriber engagement, propensity to subscribe/win-back, churn predictions and personalised ads to model customer behaviour and create cohorts for targeted marketing and acquisitions.
Quickplay’s Advanced Analytics Dashboard also provides a 360-degree view on business insights covering engagement, campaign performance, regions to target, subscription trend, survival curve and much more.
At the NAB show earlier this year, we showcased how multimodal Generative AI is transforming the ability of content providers to personalise on-screen posters – one of the entry points to video discovery. Using Generative AI’s ability to recognise actors, landmarks and genres, content and service providers can automatically design posters that are targeted to every individual viewer, based on existing viewer behaviour and preferences. This is just the latest way in which we are harnessing AI to help the streaming industry achieve new levels of success.
- What is unique about Quickplay in terms of the user experience and how are you different from other OTT technology providers in the market?
Quickplay has been one of the leaders in providing world-class user experience through various distribution channels including Mobile, Smart TV and Connected TVs. The UI/UX features & capabilities that Quickplay brings to the table is combined with harnessing the power of its reference apps, cloud-native technologies including containers, microservices, a service mesh, APIs and immutable infrastructure. This has helped clients to not only deploy innovative & interactive experiences and features but also cut time to market by 50%, and effort required to launch new services by an equal proportion. Our technology stack provides significantly better performance, a modular approach for feature expansion, continuous delivery for rapid iteration, and built-in scalability, observability and security. Using our platform, OTT providers can launch features much faster and enable new capabilities to come to market in days and weeks rather than months and years. That faster time to market means a more agile response to new opportunities that will retain, engage and monetise subscribers. It also enables rapid and cost-effective testing of new features, spurring innovation by reducing the cost of failure and shortening the time to success.
- What is FAST and why is it gathering momentum in the streaming landscape?
Free, Ad-Supported Television (FAST) has been growing consistently across the world and is now viewed as the ‘front-porch’ of OTT. In the US market alone, nScreen Media estimates that FAST will grow to 216 million monthly active users and $4.1 billion in revenue in 2023. As per a recent Amagi survey, as opposed to their counterparts in US, Australia and New Zealand, 56% Indian customers showed a greater inclination to retain their paid subscriptions rather than switch to FAST. However, 33% of those surveyed displayed a keen interest in FAST.
For subscribers who are intimidated by the myriad of OTT programming choices, FAST provides a stress-free way to view content that otherwise might not be viewed. For providers of Subscription Video On-Demand (SVOD) services, FAST can be used to expand the value of content libraries by promoting discovery of long-tail content that may be less obvious to viewers.
- What is your company’s retention strategy for its subscribers/customers?
Our technology stack and ability to help customers cut down their time to market to introduce new features or capabilities resulting in high engagement have been our USPs. While great content forms the foundation of an OTT business, our technology stack also places emphasis on ensuring a great subscriber experience and improving the overall performance of the streaming service. For example when aha and Disney+ Hotstar simultaneously aired the Indian blockbuster ‘Bheemla Nayak’, aha 2.0 earned rave reviews for its performance. Viewers tweeted lavish praise for aha’s Dolby 5.1 audio and 4K HD video quality and in an informal online poll more than 62% of viewers selected aha’s telecast as the superior experience. Alongside, our solution is pre-integrated with tools like AppsFlyer, Clevertap and messaging solutions to alert the users time-to-time with the latest addition to the content, subscription status etc. Quickplay platform combined with CleverTap focuses on mobile app engagement and customer retention, while AppsFlyer integration helps in mobile app attribution and marketing analytics. CleverTap helps drive user engagement through personalised messaging, while AppsFlyer tracks campaign performance and attributions. Also, many consumers subscribe to a service because of a single show/series. The onus is then on the OTT provider to ensure they stay engaged once they have exhausted their initial viewing interest. Our technology backend uses data analytics and AI to help OTT providers make recommendations and enable content discovery that builds stickiness with the consumer.
- What security measures have you taken to protect against potential cyber threats?
Quickplay solutions can help OTT (Over-The-Top) providers protect themselves from security threats in several ways:
Content Protection: Quickplay solutions often include robust digital rights management (DRM) systems that encrypt and protect the content being delivered over the internet. DRM ensures that only authorised users can access the content and prevents unauthorised copying or distribution. This helps protect against piracy and content theft.
Secure Video Streaming: Quickplay solutions incorporate secure streaming protocols, such as HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), which encrypt the communication between the streaming server and the client device. This encryption prevents unauthorised access to the video stream, ensuring that it cannot be intercepted or tampered with during transmission.
Authentication and Authorization: Quickplay solutions typically include mechanisms for user authentication and authorization. This ensures that only legitimate users with valid credentials can access the OTT services. By verifying the identity of users, unauthorised access and account sharing can be mitigated.
Secure APIs and Backend Systems: Quickplay solutions often provide secure APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and backend systems that enable integration with various components of the OTT ecosystem, such as subscriber management, billing, and analytics. These APIs are designed with security in mind, implementing authentication, access control, and encryption to protect sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access or manipulation.
Monitoring and Analytics: Quickplay solutions may include monitoring and analytics capabilities that allow OTT providers to track and analyse various security-related metrics. This includes monitoring for unusual activities, detecting potential security breaches, and generating alerts or reports for further investigation. By actively monitoring the system, security threats can be identified and mitigated promptly.
Compliance and Standards: Quickplay solutions often adhere to industry security standards and best practices, such as those defined by organisations like the Motion Picture Association (MPA) or the Digital Production Partnership (DPP). Compliance with these standards ensures that the OTT provider’s security measures align with industry guidelines and helps protect against known threats and vulnerabilities.
Overall, Quickplay solutions provide a comprehensive set of security features and measures that help OTT providers protect their content, infrastructure, and user data from various security threats, including piracy, unauthorised access, and data breaches.