Platform

Exa Platform

Exa will build a social platform with livestreaming capabilities, along with messaging, pictures, and video functionality

4 portions:

1. Livestreams

2. Videos

3. Pictures

4. Messages

Programming Languages

• Frontend: Dart + Flutter

• Backend: Golang

• Database: Firebase

• Hosting Server: Heroku

Livestreams

• Similar to Tiktok live, Twitch, and Kick

• The default screen layout will be 30% video camera, 40% content, and 30% chat

• The streamer has the option to not turn on their camera which would change the screen layout to 70% content, 30% chat (at the bottom)

User Authentication

• Implement user registration and authentication using Firebase

• Email based account creation

Video Streaming

• Video ingest — take RTMP video in, and then transport it to the transcode system

• Transcode system — take the incoming RTMP stream from the broadcaster, and transcode it into multiple HLS streams. This is implemented via a combination of C/C++, and Go

• Distribution and Edge — Distribute the HLS streams to geographically disparate points of presences, such that you have the highest quality video streaming experience. Again, mostly written in Go

• Recording for clips & highlights

• VODs to rewatch or reuse stream content

• No viewcount

• Show viewer list to streamer only

Chat Functionality

• Edge — Receives and distribute messages between clients and backend services. Edge speaks the IRC protocol over both raw TCP and WebSockets

• Pubsub — Distributes messages internally across Edge nodes. Pubsub and Edge combine to form a hierarchical message distribution system which executes massive fanout

• Room — Responsible for the viewer list. Room aggregates, stores, and queries membership data across all our edges to retrieve viewer lists for each channel’s chat room. Allow users to join chat rooms, send messages, interact with other viewers, and @anyone in the viewer list

• Chat will be have its own portion on the entire bottom

User Profiles and Web APIs

• Web APIs that allow users to create profiles, customize their profiles, view their streaming history, and follow other users

• Search and Discovery services that help users to find relevant streams

Web and Client Applications:

• Mobile first approach: native apps for the major mobile and tablet platforms such as iOS and Android (ertical mode similar to TikTok live)

• Desktop application: horizontal mode

• Notifications: Mobile and desktop notifications for viewers after downloading the app

• Mobile and email notifications for livestreams and stream title or category changes

• AI chat bot occasionally sending pick up lines, comments, emojis to keep the chat engaging

• Slideshow feature for switching between streams in the spotlight

• Scroll through livestreams like Twitch

Testing

• Thoroughly test your application on different devices and browsers to ensure compatibility and performance

• Test the video streaming functionality under various network conditions

Deployment

• Deploy your backend server and database to a hosting platform Heroku

• Deploy your mobile or web app to app stores or hosting platforms

Continuous Improvement

• Collect user feedback and iterate on your app to improve its features, performance, and user experience

Data Science Infrastructure

• Streaming aggregators to summarize watchtime metrics in near real-time for broadcasters

• Badges based on watch time

• Firebase database

Navigation Bar

Bottom of the screen has the navigation bar

• Featured (default/home page for everyone)

• Following (max 5, can unlock more)

• Explore?Categories? naming TBD (will not create until later)

• Search (will not create until later)

• Profile page

Home Page

• Home page showing Exa stream, symbol's streams and featured streams

Following Page

• List of people that the user has followed vertically shown one by one like Kick. Needs to be scrollable, and clicking on username will navigate to their profile or livestream

• Separate the top list for people live, and the bottom list for people offline

• automatically get mobile notifications from all following

• maximum number of streams to follow: 5-10

• Get data from firebase backend

User Profile page

• Profile picture

• Centered with text @username underneath profile pic (font size 12 or 14)

• Short bio under that (font size 10 or 12 depending upon the size you use for the username, no more than 2 lines long)

• Go Live button

Features

• Subscriptions

• Badges

• Emotes

• Donations

Feed - short videos, pictures, messages

• Build second

• Show the best short videos

• Discovery

• AI/Math algorithm

• Personal profile

• Send break videos if on too long

• Autoscroll