Wilmaa

Swiss Internet TV platform

Industry
TV streaming, online streaming
Country
Switzerland
Team
4 teammates
Duration
1.5 years

About

TV streaming, online streaming
Switzerland

The year 2008 marked the first live TV broadcast in a web browser, made possible by Wilmaa. These days, over 10 years later, our internet TV platform has become the go-to services for online television in Switzerland. Perhaps, this success is owed to the fact that our founder, Thomas Gabathuler, already had experience in innovating.

He started the Solutionpark company way back in 1999, pledging to deliver live internet video streaming even back then. Wilmaa live internet TV streaming went wide in 2010, taking the market by storm. Now, we have grown to over 250,000 unique monthly users with 4,273 monthly downloads, expanding our reach every day.

$158k
Budget
2.8k
Hours spent
4 teammates
Team
1.5 years
Duration

Background

Wilmaa was a wonder that almost didn’t happen. As Solutionpark celebrated ten years of business, the company was looking for a chance to show its accomplishments and make them widely available. As a result, a decision was made to broadcast the European Football Championship of 2008 via a web browser. To say it was a success would be to undermine how popular it was, since Gabathuler wanted to shut the site down after the stream was over but hundreds of users protested, asking for more. Thus, the 44-year-old entrepreneur started work on a bold business plan. He decided to use advertising as a means of shouldering the broadcasting rights’ price and deliver affordable streaming TV via the Internet.

Coding work was finished on December 23, 2008. Gabathuler let the staff go rest for the Christmas holidays and turned on Wilmaa himself. Several weeks ahead of the previously scheduled January launch. And, later, as Gabathuler was lounging on a Mexican beach with his wife, a phone message surprised him. Wilmaa became a smash hit nearly overnight, spurring a press boom and gaining users by the thousands. Coming home, Gabathuler saw Wilmaa boasting 100,000 registered users. And all of that was achieved even before the date on which the launch was supposed to happen.

Launch Project

Objectives

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t use a smartphone or a tablet these days. And still, TV is at the forefront of entertainment, probably thanks to the ever growing amount of high-quality content being delivered. Internet, both home and mobile, is opening up new avenues of watching TV and expanding the consumers’ choices. Wilmaa brings a broad choice of live channels to the table, watchable via your browser or mobile device. Since we’re operating in a country with four official languages and a huge international community, we made sure to diversify our content library to its max.

Our key responsibility was improving the browser version of Wilmaa to bring new features. Here are some of our new functions:

Recommendation (Web)

Users can rely on our personalized recommendation lists to find something new to watch. It takes into account the viewer’s preferences and helps them broaden their viewing habits.

Program Details (Mobile+Tablet)

To make sure you’re watching something you’ll enjoy, we offer the ability to see details on each show and movie that’s available to view. Check the info right on your phone without having to pause your watching.

Recommendation (Mobile+Tablet)

Even when you’re on your phone, thinking of what to watch while on your commute, you can scroll through the list of recommendations and pick out a new title to enjoy.

Program Guide (Mobile+Tablet)

This guide will show you what’s on at any time of day on all of our channels. You can easily bring it up on your phone or tablet and check when your favorite show will be on.

Specials (Mobile+Tablet)

We’ve created a curated list of special shows and 140+ channels that’s available on our client, presenting customers with unique content. There’s something for everyone in our selection.

Wilmaa brings a broad choice of live channels to the table, watchable via your browser or mobile device. Since we’re operating in a country with four official languages and a huge international community, we made sure to diversify our content library to its max. With that in mind, we only rely on the best solutions, doing our best to keep customers happy and engaged.

How it works

Wilmaa’s key mission lay in delivering a high-quality TV experience regardless of the device it’s used on. But we faced the issue of keeping a delicate balance between regular TV viewing and popular streaming options (Netflix and TV Guide) while staying true to Wilmaa’s style.

Challenges & solutions

challenges

solutions

challenges

solutions

benefits

Web

Challenge

Retool the browser version and help users find content easier.

Solution
  • Recommendation;
Benefit

User gets the most popular topics and can find the TV program or movie at one place.

Web

Challenge

We had to put together two different control schemes. Thus we coupled the channel list with the time selection

Solution
  • Program Guide;
Benefit

Users can easily track their program of choice and check when it will be on next. Thus we eliminated the need for a paper guide.

Mobile

Challenge

We strived to retain the TV experience of our web version while making the mobile version just as usable.

Solution
  • Program Guide;
  • Recommendation;
  • Program Details.
Benefit
  • all features work the same regardless of the device;
  • viewing experience is optimized

Key features

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Stack of technologies

Frontend:

React

Redux Saga

Styled Components

JUnit

Jasmine

XCode Testing

Android Java

iOS Swift

Google Maps API

Twilio

Swagger

Java

Backend:

React

Redux Saga

Styled Components

JUnit

Jasmine

XCode Testing

Android Java

iOS Swift

Google Maps API

Twilio

Swagger

Java

Databases:

React

Redux Saga

Styled Components

JUnit

Jasmine

XCode Testing

Android Java

iOS Swift

Google Maps API

Twilio

Swagger

Java

3rd-parties:

React

Redux Saga

Styled Components

JUnit

Jasmine

XCode Testing

Android Java

iOS Swift

Google Maps API

Twilio

Swagger

Java

Testing:

React

Redux Saga

Styled Components

JUnit

Jasmine

XCode Testing

Android Java

iOS Swift

Google Maps API

Twilio

Swagger

Java

Hosting:

React

Redux Saga

Styled Components

JUnit

Jasmine

XCode Testing

Android Java

iOS Swift

Google Maps API

Twilio

Swagger

Java

Results

Results

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Play video icon.

Roadmap

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Testimonials

Lida Perepelkina

Quality Assurance

It was unusual to work on a project of this scale, especially since it had to be oriented toward a multi-platform audience. Dealing with this challenge surely made me a better QA and I delivered a better product in the end.

Testimonials

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