Viu

Massive video on demand service

CATEGORY

Web app

CLIENT
Vuclip
YEAR

2016

SERVICES

Frontend Development
Quality Assurance

BACKEND

-

FRONTEND

AngularJS
Gulp
Webpack
Prerender.io
Hammer.js
Amplitude

The product

VIU is a video on demand service, offering the latest TV productions and music videos, that is taking Asian & African markets by storm. So far, it has been launched in 14 countries, including India, Malaysia and UAE.

Vuclip, the company behind VIU, approached us in September 2015 and tasked us with handling the frontend side of this complex service and developing a sleek corporate website for the company.

The Challenge

Vuclip used to be a mobile app, but the ambition was to build a massive video-streaming website that would offer dedicated content for multiple locations. Performance-wise it was a huge challenge that was tackled successfully thanks to clever optimization tricks.

VIU.com is a single page app, which usually proves to be an obstacle for SEO, but we’ve managed to make it crawlable. Multilingual content indexes properly for different locations.

AngularJS development

We chose to build this website using Angular - due to our expertise with this framework we were able to write a lot of functionalities in relatively short time.

We had to make sure that multiple integrations (players, payments, promo systems etc.) were working seamlessly. Due to VIU’s popularity, it has to be integrated with several external parties (e.g. mobile operators) who are providing access to the service as a perk for their clients.

It is a dynamic project, being constantly developed along with user feedback. We are in charge of implementing and maintaining various analytics tool which help Vuclip (and us) understand what’s happening in the app.



The Process

The team behind VIU is located across continents and timezones, spanning from California, through Poland, to Japan. We had to work closely with teams in India and in the USA, which is quite a challenge when it comes to digital production.

The recipe for success in this case was to follow scrum practices, organize regular standups and make the most of the available tools.

As a result we managed to keep the communication flow steady and make this transcontinental cooperation happen.

We’ve automated our workflow and introduced tools that allow us to respond immediately to any issues. VIU's infrastructure is based on Docker containers to ensure smooth deployment.

The Results

Since the initial launch in India back in 2016, VIU has become one of the most popular VOD services with millions of subscribers. Apart from the mobile-first website developed by Apptension, the service is accessible via native apps.

What started as a small startup, has evolved into a multi-team company, backed by PCCW, a Hong Kong-based ICT corporation.

We’re currently working closely with Vuclip’s frontend team based in India. Our main task is to maintain VIU’s performance and deliver new improvements based on customer feedback.

See also

Hyper - Mixed reality spatial design platform