Balcony

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The problem your project solves

There are going to be some memorable words that we will all remember from the COVID-19 pandemic such as community, social distancing and quarantine/self-isolation, lockdown. The pandemic has forced us to reimagine how we interact and how we communicate with each other. Over the past months we have witnessed how communities have come together to counteract the psychological impact of lockdown and earlier this year we saw communities sing across balconies, play music for all to enjoy from their balcony and we have seen a change in online activities, for example Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19, saw a dramatic increase in its streaming audience. StreamElements tracked thousands of Italian streamers that work across Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Mixer. In the month February there was a 66% increase of livestream views in Italy and Telecom Italia had a 70% increase in internet traffic which continued to grow compared with Sweden who saw traffic grow 2.7%. Streaming is one of the most powerful ways to reach and interact with your audience, while respecting restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Some of the reasons streaming has become important during the pandemic are:

Reinventing TV: TV subscriptions have declined due to the shift in viewers’ behaviour and needs. Streaming allows viewers to control what they watch, when they watch it and on which device. Interaction: Streaming allows instant feedback from viewers who can like streams or leave comments. The real-time interaction allows streamers and viewers to build online communities that you can continuously be associated with.

Humanity: During a crisis relationships and being in touch with people is important now more than ever and online streams allow communities to be built and businesses to continue by selling their solutions with more emotion towards the consumer or their community.

Economy: Streaming allows you generate business leads and followers which are good for the economy and is a cost-effective solution

Facilitating the control individuals have over their stream schedule means that sustainable development goals 2030 can also be met;

• Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth: This is crucial during a pandemic where people are forced to work from home and without psychical interactions some industries will shrink;
• Goal 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure: while manufacturing products during a pandemic may be limited online streaming maybe an alternative solution to reaching a wider audience
• Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities: Increasing community access to information, activities and communication build communities by bringing them together.

The solution you bring to the table

Balcony is an online platform that easily personalised to the user who can control their streaming schedule by day, time and category. This will also contribute to the growth of online communities where streamers will have access to potentially new followers.

What you have done during this weekend?

This weekend we have focused on validating our solution and assessing it’s feasibility as the project continues. We have also mobilized our Italian network to use and pilot the platform so that we can improve the platforms capabilities and address any glitches or unforeseen circumstances. We also interviewed 20 mid-size influencers who were able to validate our solution outside of Italy of who are interested in collaborating with us by providing their live streaming schedule that we can integrate in Balcony. We have been able to integrate an additional language feature so the platform is not only in Italian but also in English so that we can reach a universal audience. Additionally, we took the chance of this hackathon to find a way to automatize the search and upload of live streamings events. Thanks to a native crawler we are now able to gather and post immediately on Balcony the most relevant live events that are planned on Youtube and we are looking forward to expanding this system to the other social media platforms.

The solution impact to the crisis?

Balcony enables users to access live streams that represent a crucial way of communication not only for influencers who were used to do them already, but also for all those people (e.g. fitness trainers, chefs, barmans, musicians, artists etc) who are not able to work during quarantine time and struggle to find new ways to continue their activities. Balcony open up world of live streams for the user who is able to explore not just activities related to their own interests but also find new passions as well as streamers who are able to streamline and adapt their online presence based on their followers.

The necessities in order to continue the project

Build a standard platform (which we have achieved) and premium full stack platform that integrates automatic live streams based on interest, streamer – user (and viceversa)interaction, language and location capabilities so users can also personalise this to their geographic location etc Access to networks which include influencers and companies Strengthen our digital footprint so that we can continue to reach wider audiences Create a financial stable model and option for companies to buy liscenes for example in order to be featured in the model, advertising etc.

The value of your solution after the crisis

No-one knows what life is going to be like after the crisis and while there may-be changes in lockdown measures that enable freedom of movement but the increase of online interaction will continue to increase. In-fact, 80% of consumers would like to watch a video rather than read something online, 82% of live streaming is expected to account internet traffic in 2020 where 39% are more likely to share content. The market size of live streaming events on social media will be a $70.5 billion industry by 2021.

Balcony will allow users to access content that correspond to their personalised responses, which will give them control on how they manage their time. Streamers will be able to plan their schedules based on user responses, interest etc. Balcony has also been designed to be used easily by disabled and vulnerable communities such as hard of hearing who can create vlogs or live streams about personal experiences during the pandemic. Companies will be able to advertise and reach audiences and followers.

Our aim is to build Balcony as a recognized and trusted platform which can be easily integrated into existing products such as webinars, podcasts and social media sites.

Built With

• cloudnative