Product (3)

What was once a safety precaution, remote medical appointments, events, classrooms, and meetings are now popular and even preferred alternatives to in-person communication and transacting. Your app will need to incorporate an element of video chat to stay competitive. Luckily, video calling APIs make it quick and easy for your development team to integrate reliable

While the benefit of these standalone functionalities is clear, there are plenty of solutions working behind the scenes, like social preferences, geo-location, and usage history that enhance UX even more. An API can make these advancements possible and affordable for engineers to integrate with their app’s infrastructure. In this article, we’ll cover the most common

However, as Steve Jobs said, “Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.” Ultimately, your app's UX design will be what converts repetitive and engaged users. A good UX design caters to a customer’s needs by enhancing the user experience and facilitating brand

If users feel dissatisfied or have bad experiences with your product for too long without checking in with how the user is doing, they’ll leave before you can make the improvements they want. In fact, according to research by Zendesk, 76% of customers are willing to switch to a competitor after “multiple bad customer service

Research from Gartner predicts that by the end of 2022, 70% of customer interactions will involve technologies like chatbots and mobile messaging. It doesn’t stop there. More and more companies are already adopting chatbots as part of their customer service experience. According to data from Mordor Intelligence, the chatbot market expects to grow 34% from

As businesses strive to stay ahead of the competition, they often turn to data to inform their decisions. But not all metrics are created equal, and some can be more harmful than helpful. You've probably heard the term "vanity metric—metrics that don't uncover meaningful data about your app—and you're probably here because you don't know

A north star metric is a company’s primary metric to measure its app’s success. Sean Ellis, entrepreneur and founder of GrowthHackers, was the first person to coin the term. “The North Star Metric is the single metric that best captures the core value that your product delivers to customers,” says Ellis. “Optimizing your efforts to

It is the responsibility of online platforms to create a safe environment its users can trust, enjoy, and recommend to others. When businesses fail to moderate user-generated content, they risk alienating their audience and contributing to churn. Many businesses are looking to Trust and Safety policies and professionals to protect their customers and reputations. What

Stream is excited to announce a new version of our React Native Chat SDK. This release makes it easy to add full video file/attachment support out of the box to your chat application without needing to go through a time-consuming SDK upgrade. Your end users can now upload, send, and play videos to make their

And user retention is low. Within a month of downloading an application, somewhere between 87% and 97% of its users will abandon it. The key to mitigating this high risk of churn? Meet the needs of the app’s users. But when it comes time to make advancements to the app, not all users’ needs should

However, too much churn could signify something wrong with your app experience. As Lincoln Murphy, founder of Sixteen Ventures, says: “Churn is a symptom of a deeper, underlying disease; that disease is a failure to ensure your customers achieve their Desired Outcome.” Also, churn can be costly for your app. You spent a lot of

Trolls, bad actors, and even bots can dismantle trust within video game communities by harassing other players and posting offensive or spammy content within the chat platform. Moderating multiplayer video game chat is essential to mitigating the harmful effects of toxic content on players, communities, and the game studio itself. What is In-Game Chat? In-game

The RICE score model is a feature prioritization technique that helps you make better decisions for your roadmap based on various factors. Intercom first developed the method when it wanted to make better decisions in its product roadmap and manage its feature ideas. The RICE prioritization method is an effective way to prioritize features in

However, months after your mobile app’s release, you notice a recurrent problem: customers aren’t engaging with your app. That’s when you’ll need an effective in-app marketing strategy. In-app marketing refers to any message or marketing campaign that you send to active users while they’re inside your mobile app. The goal of in-app marketing is to

Improving developers' lives is one of the primary goals at Stream--from our SDKs, tooling, and documentation, we always work with our community to build features developers love using. Today, we are excited to share a project we have been working on with the team at Firebase. Together, we created not one but three Firebase Extensions

Machine Learning Engineer Chiara Caratelli covers how Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology can be leveraged to identify and moderate commercial spam at DeveloperWeek Europe 2022. Whether you’re attending a virtual event or watching your favorite gamer on a live stream, communicating via chat is a great way to engage with fellow participants, the host, and

Over the last few months, our Futter team has been hard at work making significant improvements to the Stream Chat Flutter SDK. This version is focused on improving the developer experience by giving you more control and flexibility in how you use our core components and UI widgets. For a detailed list of changes, including

Now, with VR gaming tech, players can virtually lose themselves in alternate realities. In what could be the most significant era in human history, with technology evolving at lightning speed, inquiring minds want to know where gaming will go from here. One of the most accurate ways to predict what will happen is to look

What is Chat Moderation? Chat moderation is the act of reviewing and regulating user-generated messages and content posted on a platform to ensure it’s not inappropriate or otherwise harmful to the brand's reputation or its users. Why is Chat Moderation Important? Chat is paramount to building a strong sense of trust and safety with your

Image Source: Unsplash “If we don’t have successful customers, we can’t have a successful business,” said Jamie Domenici in a blog post when she served as the global SVP of customer adoption at Salesforce. But how do you make sure your customers are successful? By devoting someone to the task: a customer success specialist. A

Image Source: Unsplash A positioning statement explains briefly how your mobile app solves the needs of your target user and aligns your internal team on how to move forward. The statement sets the foundation for your marketing efforts and how you want the market to perceive your mobile app. A positioning statement must be an

Unsplash You could develop and release the best app in the world. But if you’re not promoting and marketing your app to boost awareness, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Mobile acquisition is an integral part of managing a mobile app. Without any users, you don’t have an app, so driving new users is essential

Image Source So you have an app, but it’s not ready to go to market. You first need feedback from users to tell you what’s working and what’s not. And how do you do it? By soft-launching your app before going into a full release. A soft launch is a strategy that involves releasing a

Image Source Your mobile app’s success depends on how well you can get users to adopt your product and stick around. User adoption refers to the process a mobile app user goes through to become accustomed to an app and start using it repeatedly. According to angel investor Andrew Chen: “The single most telling metric

Only two years later, 16% of companies worldwide are operating business as usual without a single office space. Technology has been a boon to the success of newly remote teams. Project management, document storage, and goal-setting tools have enabled workers to reimagine processes while remaining productive, so much so that 77% of remote employees consider

If you’ve ever participated in a public online chat that’s suddenly inundated with identical messages encouraging you to click on a certain link, you’ve experienced the frustration of commercial spam. In addition to being annoying for chat users, commercial spam also deteriorates the quality of a chat, lowers the trust and safety rating of your

Image Source The average consumer has 40 apps installed on their phone, according to research by Simform, and is inactive on more than half of them. That’s over 20 apps that acquired an interested user but lost that user sometime after the app download. Those apps could spend resources to acquire new users, but a

Learning management systems (LMS) enable businesses to house and distribute important documents. Unlike a traditional file sharing service, an LMS platform is dynamic and capable of streamlining critical processes. Many businesses leverage an LMS to automate employee onboarding, keep employees up to date on compliance regulations, and educate students, salespeople, and channel partners on how

We added some major improvements (and quality of life fixes) to our v5.0.1 update with a focus on the following items: Merging the ChatClient and ChatDomain classes, and adding a new OfflinePlugin class New image and name properties for Channel and User models Improved UI Components customization Stable Jetpack Compose UI Components We recommend migrating

What is a Virtual Marketplace? The instant access to customer reviews, the negotiable prices, and the extraordinary convenience of marketplace apps is enough to give the behemoth of e-commerce a run for its money. Unlike conventional e-commerce sites, the responsibility of maintaining inventory, shipping logistics, product images, descriptions, and pricing falls on the seller. The

Image As the world slowly finds a way out of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work is here to stay. According to Upwork’s Future Workforce Report, businesses expect 58% of their workforce to be fully remote within the next five years. However, the rise of remote work comes with a new challenge: effective team communication. In

From playing poker to going all-in on your favorite thoroughbred, online gambling sites enable people from around the world to place bets on traditional casino games, novel games, and sports teams alike. The online gambling industry is rapidly growing, and every year more players are logging in to strike it rich. Online gambling garnered $59B

But do we stick to them? While you likely know the answer to that question, you may not know the “why” behind it. Research shows that 43% of people give up only one month after setting a fitness-related goal — with the top reasons for this outcome centered around one common denominator: lack of accountability.

This major release comes packed with new feature sets, DX and UX improvements, UI customizations, and so much more. Keep reading for a brief summary of what’s included in the update, or check out the “What’s New in v4?” section of the documentation for a deeper look. Highlights New features, including Pin Messages, Slow Mode,

Image Source Over 66% of customers expect your company to fully understand their needs. The tricky thing is those needs will be completely different from user to user, since not all mobile app customers are the same. User segmentation can help you better understand those customers and serve their needs. It allows you to divide

More product teams than ever before are choosing to buy app functionality from an API/SDK provider rather than building it from the ground up. According to a Nordic APIs report, three in four professional app developers rely on third-party APIs to easily incorporate tough-to-code features into apps. Often, the decision to buy an off-the-shelf solution

When successfully integrated, you can leverage your activity feed to increase your app’s user engagement and retention rates while lowering customer acquisition costs (CAC). But before you can enjoy a performance boost, you must first decide whether to build your activity feed solution in-house or buy one from a third-party vendor. Both routes have their

Image Source Getting new users to sign up for your app means nothing if you can’t keep them engaged. You need users who will return to your app for more if you want long-term success. In fact, according to research from Localytics, 73% of mobile users will either delete an app or become inactive on

Unity is one of the most popular gaming engines on the market, beloved by indie developers and AAA studios alike. The engine is largely considered beginner friendly with its robust documentation and streamlined user interface. However, designing a game from scratch can be quite an undertaking regardless of your level of experience. Inspired by Unity’s

Fifty-one percent of apps are downloaded because of friends and family referrals. However, this marvelous marketing by word-of-mouth only works because users find value in engaging with your application. But driving user engagement can be tricky, especially with the unlimited app choices users have at their fingertips and a quarter of users abandoning an app

It’s not enough to sell a fantastic product — delivering an excellent customer experience matters just as much. According to Salesforce research, 80% of customers believe that their experience with a company is as important as the products they sell. You need an effective customer engagement strategy if your company wants to build a better

Thanks to their low barrier to entry, Unreal Engine and Unity are now two of the most popular choices beloved by indie studios and AAA game developers alike. The low-to-no pricing structure of these game engines managed to revolutionize the industry in a matter of years, convincing large publishers to abandon their old engines and

Image Source As Ralf Speth, CEO at Jaguar, says: “If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” In all business decisions, failure to anticipate a customer’s expectations can end in disaster. For example, do you remember New Coke? Tropicana’s 2009 package redesign failure? Both were costly mistakes

Image Source Personalization has become the gold standard in ecommerce. According to research from Epsilon, 80% of customers feel more motivated to purchase from a brand if it offers a more personalized experience. Ecommerce personalization involves tailoring your messaging, content, and product recommendations based on your customers’ feedback and behavior, such as their purchasing history

This new take on a traditionally isolating activity is made possible by the rise of chat solutions for video games. Not only do gamers love the sense of community and camaraderie that chatting with other players creates, but thanks to in-game chat, studios also enjoy the benefits of their users being more engaged, translating to

Quill, a software company that aimed to be a more focused and productive version of Slack, was recently purchased by Twitter to improve the social media platform’s direct message experience. Launched in February 2021, Quill was up and running for just 10 months before announcing its acquisition on December 7, giving its customers four days

Image Source As a product manager, you’ll have to deal with the dilemma of getting many feature requests from different departments on what needs to be in the roadmap. But the problem is, you won't be able to act on every request. So, to manage the long list of possible features, you'll need to prioritize

User interviews are an excellent approach to product discovery. Speaking to customers directly helps you collect valuable insights on their needs, so you can figure out whether your product ideas match their expectations. However, running compelling customer interviews involves more than just asking customers a couple of basic questions. It’s essential you ask the right

With Stream's new Angular Chat SDK, developers can quickly build and integrate Stream's enterprise-grade chat into any application written in Angular. Our SDK is built from the ground up to seamlessly integrate and scale with your project. In just a few lines of code, developers can add real-time messaging to their application using familiar Angular

Stream’s SwiftUI SDK gives iOS developers simplified access to all of Stream’s in-app chat API features, making it even easier for teams to iterate on designs and achieve their goals while writing less code. You can integrate our SDK into any new or existing iOS application, complete with all the features necessary to build a

Now more than ever, gaming is a social experience — according to a recent study, some 77% of gamers in the US see gameplay as an opportunity to connect with friends and make new ones. In-game chat creates a sense of community and camaraderie among players that will keep them coming back for more and

Like many great startups, FanScout started by identifying a problem. For developer David Brear, this problem occurred during a weekend trip in New York City. Brear wanted to catch the Washington Capitals playing the New York Rangers in a sports bar — an important ice hockey game. But after visiting several bars, he couldn’t find

Keeping users hungry for more is critical to your product’s success. To do so, you must communicate with them effectively to catch their attention and give them reasons to come back. That’s where in-app messaging comes in. In-app messaging is contextual and is comprised of real-time pop-up messages that you can use to guide customers

Whether you’re strategizing a plan of attack with your teammates or simply looking to catch up with old pals over a game, a user-friendly communications tool can exponentially improve your favorite pastime and be the perfect alternative to in-game chat. In this article, we’ll cover the top ten best gaming chat apps that’ll help you

There are plenty of ready-made solutions on the market to get your customer support (CS) operation off the ground quickly, but they’re not without their drawbacks. Building a bespoke customer support interface can provide more customization and flexibility but at a higher development cost. This article covers CS fundamentals, the primary support channel, and will

Image Source And at the end goal of each habit, there is a reward. For example, when we drink our sip of coffee in the morning, we feel energized and ready to tackle our tasks for the day. Or, when we feel stressed, we might decide to meditate as a way to calm ourselves down.

When we compare an app with a social environment to one without, the latter sees lower user engagement rates, a higher cost-per-install (CPI), and more frequent churn. Enabling users to chat amongst themselves creates a sense of community that doubles as a powerful acquisition and retention tool you’ll want in your arsenal. A tight community

Data is the product marketer’s best friend. Leveraged correctly, it gets rid of any guessing on the motivations of your target user, so you can launch and test marketing campaigns that deliver the best possible ROI. And what better data to use than the insights of your existing user’s behavior? Product analytics is an essential

Nearly every part of the travel industry has been transformed by mobile technology. Airline passengers arrive at their gate with tickets already on their phones. Taxis are summoned using ride-sharing apps such as Lyft or Uber, where passengers message their driver directly. Scannable QR codes provide access to museums, art exhibits, sporting events, and concerts.

This guiding tenant has worked its way into the customer support space, creating the concept of conversational banking. The biggest challenge facing banks today is customer retention. Customer acquisition costs (CAC) are at a record high, and so are their expectations. Our culture prizes connectivity and convenience above all, from how we swipe (or don’t)

Image Source Each year, thousands of startups launch products that they’re convinced will change the world. However, few of them will find success; according to a report by Startup Genome, only 1 out of 12 startups succeed in the long run. As a product manager, a danger you must avoid is blindly falling in love

The modern consumer demands convenience. Last year, over two billion people completed their transactions online, with sales surpassing the $4.2 trillion mark. Enabling your customers to make in-app purchases and payments is no longer considered nice to have; it’s expected. But with great UX comes great responsibility, and protecting cardholder data (CHD) should be at

Image Source Modern technology has fueled the success of telemedicine, which allows doctors to treat and diagnose their clients from home, even if they’re thousands of miles away. Statista expects the telemedicine market to reach a whopping $459 billion by 2030. Telemedicine combines the use of online chat and video conferencing to make healthcare accessible

Image Building an exceptional SaaS product is just the first step to optimizing the user experience. For customers to get the most from your platform, you also need to provide them with quality support that leads to success. That’s because your SaaS customer support has a significant influence over loyalty and retention. According to research

Product design is the backbone of the tech we use every day — our computers, our phones, and our apps. It’s everything that happens behind the scenes to ensure products provide the most value to their users. It's a process that helps you confirm you’re solving a real problem in the market and helps you

Chat moderation at scale just got easier — with the release of Stream’s Advanced Moderation feature, human moderators can harness the power of machine learning to stay one step ahead of bad actors. Advanced Moderation reviews messages as they’re sent, automatically detecting illicit content and taking action to either flag messages for human review or

Whether it be for business or pleasure, traveling can often feel lonely: Travelers are typically surrounded by other people, but making that first connection can be difficult. While waiting for a flight in a crowded airport, William Cooper, co-founder of the startup travel app Abord, noticed the potential for a platform that could initiate conversations

Stream is excited to announce a new major version of our iOS Chat SDK. This release comes packed with performance improvements that will enhance the overall developer experience by providing more flexibility and control over customizations when incorporating chat and messaging functionalities into mobile applications. Specifically, this update will provide a more seamless SDK experience

The role of a product manager is to identify user needs and prioritize features in the product that will meet those expectations. It’s why companies that are recruiting will ask you design questions during PM interviews to test your ability to solve challenges, pitch a solution, and bring a product vision to life. The CIRCLES

This article is geared towards product managers who have found themselves inheriting a new product, whether that be from changing companies, taking over a new product line within your company, or something else entirely. It is written for more technical SaaS products (such as Stream’s API solutions), but is generally applicable. This article might also

During agile development (or Scrum), product owners manage all the tasks, processes, and workflows. They oversee each sprint and make sure that the developer team progresses toward turning the product vision into reality. The product owner is responsible for maximizing the productivity of the Scrum team. Their tasks include communicating the product goal to developers,

Camila Landivar says that her mom, Paula, has always had a magnetic personality. In her work as a fitness instructor, she’s not only able to motivate people to do one more pushup, but also she inspires them to follow a more holistic and healthy lifestyle outside of the gym. That’s why in early 2020, Camila

If you’re in the startup world, you probably worship at the altar of product-market fit. It’s the #1 obsession for many startup entrepreneurs who want to position their product for success. “In my view, product/market fit is the most important thing to get right as a startup,” says Scott Cook, founder of Intuit. “There's a

Stream is proud to announce native support for app localization (l10n) and internationalization (i18on) across four of our flagship in-app chat SDKs, including React, React Native, Flutter, and Android (Kotlin, Java, & Jetpack Compose), with support for iOS app localization coming soon. Stream’s chat API, SDKs, and UI kits make it easy for developers to

The best way to approach product development is not to pursue every feature someone proposes just because it seems like a good idea. Instead, the key is to focus on the features that will make the most significant impact on your goals. Impact mapping is a tool for product development teams to choose which features

A product manager will have to juggle different and sometimes competing requests from internal and external stakeholders. For example, the sales team wants you to include as many features as possible, the engineers want to set realistic goals, and the C-suite pressures you to deliver on time and under budget. The big question is, how

Can you remember the last time you visited a brick-and-mortar bank? Neither can we. Chances are that the majority of your banking, stock trading, peer-to-peer payments, and cryptocurrency activity is now completed through an app or website. Financial technology, commonly known as fintech, is a booming industry that has already transformed how people around the

So you've designed and released a great mobile app. But your work isn't over; in fact, it's just beginning. The next step is to measure how well users respond to it and make continuous adjustments based on data for long-term success. To improve your mobile app and retain more users, you need to be measuring

When we released the free Stream Maker Account in March 2021, we hoped that qualifying early-stage tech entrepreneurs, students, hobbyists, and coders would use our activity feed and chat APIs to help put their ideas into action. After nearly six months, we’re blown away by the breadth of innovative projects that are being created with

The best way to grow in your career as a product manager is to get advice from mentors whom you admire. As the saying goes: “Fools learn from their own mistakes, while wise men learn from the mistakes of others.” Learning about the experiences of other successful product managers through books is one of the

When you walk into a brick-and-mortar retail store, chances are that a store employee will approach you to make a personal connection, and ask if you need help finding a specific item. This common retail practice opens the door for salespeople to connect with customers, answer questions about products, guide customers toward exactly what they

So your team of marketers, developers, and salespeople worked hard to launch your product, and you’re starting to see the results. Your list of subscribers is exploding, you’re bringing in new revenue, and users are upgrading their memberships. So far, so good, right? However, after looking at the long-term data, you realize there’s a big

With so many products being developed every day, it's unlikely that new users will take the time to learn the ins-and-outs of each without any walk-throughs. User onboarding is the first impression you make on your users, and it helps them discover the value of your product quickly. A well-defined onboarding process helps users navigate

Stream is excited to announce a new major version of our Flutter Chat SDK, giving developers in the Flutter community even more flexibility to add any type of chat or messaging experience to any type of mobile app. This release improves performance and reliability and makes it easy to add international language support. New to

Dermatologists rely on visual assessment to diagnose and treat skin conditions, and since most patients have a phone with a camera in their pocket, telehealth tools that enable patients to capture and send images of skin lesions to their doctor seem like a no brainer. But to gauge the size, growth rate, and types of

Building a great product is no easy feat. From prototyping to planning out your roadmap, product managers will need to use different tools for each step of the way. Building a software product is like building your own canoe: if you don't have the right tools for each part of the process, you're sunk. Whether

Stream enables thousands of companies, from small startups to enterprise corporations, to easily integrate chat and activity feed functionality into their software products. Increased engagement, improved user experience, and elevated app stickiness are just several of the many benefits app owners reap with the Stream Activity Feed and Chat APIs. Here’s what customers are saying

For your product to be successful, you need to identify your users’ needs at every stage of their journey. According to Salesforce, 76% of SaaS customers expect brands to have a well-rounded understanding of their needs and wants. For example, let’s say you're running a workplace communication software company like Slack. The needs of your

The user’s product journey consists of various stages. And if there’s friction at any point, you might just lose your customer for good. That’s where user stories come in. They’re an essential element of the agile methodology and help you better understand the user’s expectations by putting yourself in their shoes. To understand your users’

Building a product that retains users starts by understanding their needs. If not, you’ll just have a product with plenty of fancy features but doesn't really solve the challenges of your user. How can product managers better understand the product experience from the user’s perspective and build the right features that make an impact? The

Stream Chat’s newest backend SDK is now available, extending complete integration support to apps written in Java. This release brings the total number of backend frameworks with dedicated Stream Chat SDKs to seven (in addition to our REST API, which can be used to build unlimited custom integrations). Our SDK engineering teams are excited to

It should be no surprise that some of the world’s most popular apps contain an activity feed as their core functionality. This comprehensive guide is a crash course in activity feed types, activity feed benefits and best practices, and real-world activity feed examples and use cases. We’ll also explore how you can quickly integrate a

Creating the best product for your audience consists of understanding each step of the user journey. That way, you can prioritize your work and releases effectively. User story mapping is an effective strategy to guide your team and understand users' needs throughout the product experience. In addition, it offers the possibility to better identify key

Today's digital world has gone global—app users expect the ability to communicate with those on the other side of the world as easily as they can with a local user. When they experience delays in real-time communication, it can hurt UX and negatively impact metrics like user engagement, satisfaction, and churn. Your app needs an

User stories help product teams of all sizes conceptualize the product experience and understand users' needs. On top of that, they also align teams on shared product goals and improve collaboration. However, agile product teams need to know how to write user stories correctly in order to get the most out of them. Creating compelling

Savvy hiring managers know that talent alone isn’t enough to make a solid team. Rather, each employee’s commitment to a unified effort is arguably more important than individual experience to reach business objectives. Such traits are cornerstone attributes that Olivia Ryan, software project and product lead for the Louisville, Kentucky-based development firm Slingshot looks for

Online dating in the United States is big business. An estimated 1,500 apps are available for download on Google Play and the Apple App Store, and studies suggest that by 2024, 53.3 million Americans will use internet dating services. Online dating options abound, with many apps supporting different interests, geographical locations, and religious values. But

Every PM knows that their success depends on developing products that align with users’ expectations and needs. However, over 49% of product managers report struggling to validate whether or not the product they’re building fits the needs of their market. That’s why you need to get serious about collecting customer feedback if you want to

Adding new functionality to a product can be a time-consuming process that requires a knowledgeable engineering team and significant resources to solidify long-term stability. And certain features — especially those requiring real-time infrastructure — can be costly and difficult to build from scratch. Third-party tech providers afford product managers more choices when it comes to

How to Measure User Retention Throughout The Product Experience Building a successful SaaS company isn’t just about acquiring new customers—you also have to retain your existing users. According to astudy by Bain & Company, boosting customer retention by just 5% can lead to at least 25% more profits. Measuring user retention and using the data