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PopViewers
The tech and processes behind What’s Poppin’
PopViewers The tech and processes behind What’s Poppin’
The Situation
PopViewers is an idea by Chris Witherspoon, the company’s CEO. Throughout his experience in the entertainment industry, he recognized that there was no platform exclusively dedicated to the consumers of this type of content being the critics. Witherspoon’s main idea was creating a platform where consumers could find their next movie, show, or TV series to enjoy, but also to react to and share their experience with a community of lovers of this type of entertainment.
PopViewers Context
Vision
To help content lovers (users) find what to watch, react, and share those reactions with a community of people who also enjoy entertainment.
Why
To fill the void that exists, both in the entertainment industry and on social media, of a one-stop-shop where you can find, share, and be critical of content from all streaming, movie, and TV platforms.
Goals
- Build an application that allows users to discover content that is right for them, in a personalized way.
- Create a community that revolves around topics such as movies and television, while democratizing the voices of consumers, who pay for that content.
- Concentrate content from film, television, and all other streaming platforms on a single social platform, allowing users to become the community of critics.
Vision
To help content lovers (users) find what to watch, react, and share those reactions with a community of people who also enjoy entertainment.
Goals
- Build an application that allows users to discover content that is right for them, in a personalized way.
- Create a community that revolves around topics such as movies and television, while democratizing the voices of consumers, who pay for that content.
- Concentrate content from film, television, and all other streaming platforms on a single social platform, allowing users to become the community of critics.
Why
To fill the void that exists, both in the entertainment industry and on social media, of a one-stop-shop where you can find, share, and be critical of content from all streaming, movie, and TV platforms.
The GBH Difference
Agile framework
Agile frameworks adapted to the needs of the product. At GBH we have experience developing technological solutions for startups, whose needs vary widely. In the same way, our processes based on agile frameworks are adapted to the particular needs so that we can continuously deliver the value that our customers expect.
High-frequency engagement
Value delivery
What We Did
Discovery
We started the user experience process by setting up a series of workshops that allowed us to discover the scope of what was to be done, as well as the construction of the initial architecture, design, and development roadmap.
Adaptation to changes
An important benefit of operating in an agile environment is that it gives us the ability to adapt to change with minimal resistance. At PopViewers, having ideas continously developing and evolving as the project moved along was essential to the success of the project; especially because everyone involved shared the agile mindset, and the work processes we implemented supported these ongoing adaptations.
Planning and prioritization of value delivery
We worked closely with the CPO to identify the features that would add the most value early on. In this way, the efforts of the team always support the needs of the client in order to fulfill their different objectives.
Designing a scalable architecture
The need to be able to have sudden users’ spikes, based on events in the entertainment world, made it necessary to design an architecture that can scale quickly and without human intervention. Therefore, a robust serverless solution was designed in AWS lambda.
Artificial intelligence model construction
One of the goals was to provide personalized content to users. Therefore, we iteratively built a model that analyzes their preferences to predict the content that may be of interest to them.
Internal KPIs
The Result
Landing Page (September 2020)
The first product of our collaboration with PopViewers to see the light of day was an innovative website with an attractive design. The site was designed to be the first stop for our potential users, informing them about the features of the application that would soon be in their hands, and giving them the opportunity to be on the waiting list to be the first to know about the launch of the application.
This website allowed to build the first mailing list of interested users for promoting the application at the time of its launch.
Closed Beta launch (November 2020)
This was a first version of the product, launched with the objective of including VIP users and potential investors, to demonstrate what the product has to offer.
With this version, user-generated content was obtained as pre-existing baseline information for the public launch, while this information was also being used in promotional efforts.
Public launch (December 2020)
After meeting Apple’s demanding guidelines, we achieved a successful launch of the application. With this new stage, PopViewers gives users the opportunity to:
- Receive personalized movie, TV, and streaming recommendations based on their preferences.
- React to content and express their opinions.
- Chat live during relevant events in the world of entertainment.
- Comment and discuss relevant aspects of content.
- Vote and thus be part of the community of content lovers.
The product is exclusive for iOS; however, it is possible to share with anyone the interesting reactions through the web version of the application, yet another one that is part of the family of products we build.
Blog (February 2021)
We continue to accompany PopViewers on its journey of success. We recently developed and launched what is, so far, their newest product: a publishing destination with the goal of attracting lovers of big screen, TV, and streaming content, as well as the stories behind the content, to a place where they can learn about and enjoy “what’s Poppin”.
Along with the Blog, a new version of the iOS app was released. This recent version allows users to read Blog articles without leaving the app.
Project Performance
By tracking various performance metrics that analyze earned value, budget, and delivery dates, among others, we keep projects under control and ensure their success.
Velocity
In agile projects under the Scrum framework, we measure the value delivered in each Sprint. This metric allows us to make increasingly accurate planning that considers what can be delivered and allows us to adjust the planning based on each team’s actual performance. This results in more realistic work plans and expectations that can be met.
Commitment
We have turned Daily Standups into a meaningful ceremony by implementing engagement metrics: a tracking system that allows us to visualize and analyze historically the commitments made and their fulfillment, as well as keeping the high-level plan under control, by tracking in detail the tasks that comprise it.
Quality analytics
An integral part of our development process is tracking quality metrics such as defects found, user story returns in test environments, as well as the severity of these defects. These quality metrics are continuously analyzed by the entire team to identify opportunities for improvement, predict possible variations to the plan, as well as to identify a quality baseline to continue leading the team to reach its maximum performance.