How to Implement Real Time Chat in Live Streaming?

In the lead-up to the 2024 US Presidential Election, Twitch was one live streaming platform that startled everyone. The popular gaming live stream became an unlikely hotseat of political discourse. As candidates, campaign war rooms, and commentators streamed in, Twitch quickly became a lively real-time political debate forum. A clever move, considering the dominating market share of video streaming industry, isn’t it?

Apart from this, pushing politics to younger generations was the very motive behind this process. Just give it some thought for a moment. Instead of observing a person play video games, the young generation was made to tune into a presidential debate. This started heating up as they were permitted to shoot questions in the real time chat in live streaming. And then, there was that one night nobody saw coming. When the candidates kicked off the discussion on healthcare and climate change, the chat buzzed with questions from the observers. At that very juncture the debate diverted the platform into hosting the most interactive event.

The campaigns made a very good move by deciding to live streamed their rallies. This was a possibility for supporters, especially those who were unable to follow the rally to join the buzz virtually. Fans around the country encouraged this, they were overwhelmed and shared their thoughts making the chat buzz with excitement.

On the appointed election day, the political analysts displayed their live comments throughout the night. The chat was overflowing with endless questions and lively debates on the results that made politics very accessible and engaging. This is how they worked to hook in the targeted younger viewers who generally tend to disregard mainstream media.

While it’s hard to say how much Twitch influenced voter to turnout into votes but, it sparked new interest in politics among younger audiences. This example shows how live streaming can change the way youngsters engage with important events, making live stream platforms like Twitch powerful tools for political discourse.

Now, it’s time to relate. Do you think this entire hype that was created by this election on Twitch, particularly among the younger generation, would have been possible without the real time chat in live streaming? The answer is a big NO. The following image with stats validates this.

Source: https://thrivemyway.com/

Why Does Live Streaming Need a Live Chat?

Are you still not convinced about how chat could transform live streaming? Think of that one common thing in the live streaming talk shows, seminars, conferences, and debates irrespective of any niche. All of these events feature speakers and a Q&A session, so a conversation is unavoidable. This is made possible through chat integration.

Because anyone in the world can tune in. As a result, real-time feedback is made possible via a chat room. Furthermore, a live streaming chat allows remote viewers to submit a question in the Q&A session. A moderator, for example, can ask a question directly to the speaker, and the speaker can respond via chat room or directly via live stream. What better way could there be to establish authority than live chat?

Moreover, we are aware that live streaming allows the event’s organizer to serve both audiences, namely those who attend the event in person and those who attend remotely. This way it builds community and paves the way to enhancing engagement.

And, not to overlook a bigger cue for user-generated content. Eager to know how to create a live streaming platform with this feature or integrate this gold mine into your existing live streaming? Keep scrolling to get the detailed steps for implementation.

How to Integrated Real Time Chat in Live Streaming Platform?

Adding live chat onto a streaming platform skyrockets the audience interaction volume. And, instantaneously this makes the experience more engaging so that viewers can connect both with the streamer and with each other in real-time. In the form of sending a shoutout, asking questions, or reacting to a moment on the stream, it encourages that element of community. For the streamer, it’s an immediate means of direct feed to make a person’s content more engaged and responsive to the audience.

Start to Build Your Own Live Streaming Platform

Are you looking for details on how to create a live-streaming platform? This section is not going to deal with it in detail. You can refer to the following blogs to get enough insights into both topics.

How to create a live streaming app?

How to improve live streaming quality?

And, if you’re someone who is not interested in technical setup, third-party services such as YouTube Live, Twitch, or Vimeo would be preferable because these will stream live video, with a live chat as an in-built feature; you get all this engagement without fidgeting with complex coding; just go live, watch your conversation flow, and focus on the content!

Choose a Live Stream Chat feature

Real-time communication is one great feature when you’re building an app like Airbnb. That’s at least the way it should work, and don’t start from scratch THIRD PARTY APIs for CHAT save time and effort. We, here at Appkodes opt for Pusher and Socket.IO for live video streaming.

Third-party Chat APIs: Quick and Easy Integration

Third-party services like Pusher Chatkit, Twilio, and Socket.IO make it very easy to include real-time chat features in your application:

Real-time chat features can be included in your apps in no time using Third-party services like Pusher Chatkit, Twilio, and Socket.iO. They make it a piece of cake.

• Pusher Chatkit provides instant messaging, typing indicators, and message history—perfect for real-time user interactions.
• Twilio involves voice and video options along with text chat, promising a well-rounded communication experience on the whole.
• Socket.IO promises fast reliable chat with real-time notifications and updates. Could there be a better option for apps that cannot afford delay?

Real-Time with WebSockets

With WebSockets, such an application is possible since the possibility of instant data interchange between the server and the user can be created. Such an application also takes into consideration messaging with fast, real-time usage through Pusher and Socket.IO and makes sure that users stay connected.

Using these services saves time and guarantees a reliable, scalable chat system. So, with these, you can focus on building your app while they regulate the communication.

Set Up the Backend

To power your app’s chat and streaming features, you’ll need a solid backend. This is where server-side technologies like Node.js, Python, or other frameworks come in. They handle the heavy lifting behind the scenes, managing chat, streaming, and user interactions smoothly.

Backend Technologies:

• Node.js is the best choice for real-time apps like chat and streaming as it’s fast and scalable.
• Python is the best for handling complex backend logic with ease.

Pick the one that perfectly suits your app’s needs and ensure that it can handle high traffic and real-time communication.

Database Options:

• MongoDB is a NoSQL database that’s easygoing and ideal for holding real-time chat messages and user info.
• Firebase is another real-time database with built-in sync across users, excellent for chat apps requiring instant updates.
• MySQL is a tried-and-true relational database that functions well for structured data like user profiles and chat logs.

Storing Chat Data:

There are Chats and other data that have to be stored. They are,

• Chat messages must be stored as it allow you to keep a record of user conversations for reference or moderation.
• User information needs to be stored for sure, especially details like usernames, preferences, and activity history.
• Moderation data cannot be ignored as it’s very important to keep track of flagged messages or users to maintain a safe environment.

For your app to run smoothly, handling user chats, real-time messaging, and all the data behind the scenes efficiently you need the right backend setup and database.

Develop the Frontend Live stream Chat Interface

In order to build a user-friendly chat interface, you can not dare to ignore focusing on the key elements discussed below.

Key Components:

1. Message Input Field where users type their messages is a primary component. So, be careful not to complicate it and go for a simple and easy-to-find style.
2. The Send Button for sending messages must stand out making it spottable by users.
3. Display Area for Chat Messages holds the conversation history. This area should automatically scroll to keep the latest messages visible to users.

Dynamic Updates with JavaScript (or Frameworks like React or Vue)

Make the chat interface responsive by making use of JavaScript, React, or Vue:

• Real-time Updates are made possible when you make use of WebSockets as discussed earlier. There are API calls also to get new messages instantly. This will not ask users to refresh the page to see updates often.
• React lets you use hooks to manage the chat state and also allows the app to update when new messages come in.
• Vue with its reactive features tends to automatically display new messages as they arrive.

Source:https://www.scaler.com/

User Experience Tips:

• Auto-scroll makes sure the chat view scrolls to the bottom when new messages are sent.
• Notifications are indicators for unread messages or hints to keep users occupied when someone is typing.

There are the primary components you need to focus on while you set to create a simple and enjoyable chat interface for live streaming that’s loved by many users.

User Authentication

The next step that follows frontend development is to manage user identities in your chat app. To get this done you need to implement user authentication following the methods below,

Authentication Methods

OAuth is an authentication method that allows users to log in using existing accounts. Existing accounts can include services like Google or Facebook that facilitate easy access.

JWT (JSON Web Token) is another authentication method that creates a token upon login, which is used for user identity verification for future interactions.

Session-based Authentication helps to keep users logged in as long as the session is active by making it possible to store a session on the server with a unique ID.

Creating User Profiles

Permit users to identify themselves in chat by picking unique usernames. You have to allow users to upload images or choose avatars. this will let the users enjoy a more personalized experience. Therefore, by implementing these features you can bring in secure access and provide your users with a more engaging chat environment.

Testing and Optimization

Testing and optimization are steps that should always be involved with the testing out of the smooth operation of the chat system. For starters, there is a need to conduct load testing to find out how the system performs under multitudes of users at one time. This way, though still in a simulated real-life approach, it can help to check if any kind of performance bottlenecks would occur at launch.

The same goes for latency too. Yes! You guessed it right, sending and receiving messages quickly. With less delay, the chat experience stays fast and responsive, meaning users never have to wait for their messages to appear. Even when a system is loaded with heavy usage, the interface should be smooth and interactive. These steps together go ahead to deliver a reliable user-friendly chat system.

Deploy Your Application

Finally,

• User information needs to be stored for sure, especially details like usernames, preferences, and activity history.
• Moderation data cannot be ignored as it’s very important to keep track of flagged messages or users to maintain a safe environment.

For your app to run smoothly, handling user chats, real-time messaging, and all the data behind the scenes efficiently you need the right backend setup and database.

Set Up Monitoring Tools

Now that your app is live, how do you make sure it’s running smoothly? Enter monitoring tools. These tools help you keep an eye on your app’s performance and user engagement in real-time. Platforms like AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, or even third-party tools like Datadog and New Relic are like your app’s personal health trackers.

With these, you can see:

• How fast your app responds to users (nobody likes a slow app).
• How much CPU or memory is your app using?
• Error rates, so you can quickly spot any bugs.
• What are your users up to? What features do they love? How are they navigating your app? What your users are up to – which of its features they like the most and how they’re navigating your app.

And the best part? These tools send you alerts if something’s off. So, you’ll know right away if things go sideways, and you can fix issues fast before your users even notice.

Deploying to the cloud and setting up these monitoring tools ensures your app is scalable, secure, and reliable, no matter how many users come knocking.

Gather Feedback and Iterate

This is the step you can never think of ignoring. Gathering feedback from users through surveys, in-app feedback, or reviews. Reading what actual users have to say gives insight into what works and where things can become better.

To achieve success with precision you need to monitor the chat area by how fast it is working, based on the user engagement level, and more. That could help to know whether the real-time performance of the chat meets one’s expectations or not.

Only by collecting regular feedback and data about the performance, you can roll out the updates regularly. Bugs should be eradicated, features should be improved, and improvements added according to the needs of the user.

Therefore, it’s important to keep an eye on the new technology. Try to always bring improvements either with AI, machine learning, or any other communication tool to ensure the chat stays new, efficient, and in step with what a user would want.

This way collecting the user feedback and making changes based on that constantly within the chat input will help you arrive at a user-engaging platform. Could you suggest a better alternative to this process to ensure the feature’s appeal, relevance, and viability? Yes! then Comment your thoughts!

Having completed the process of implementing chat window in live streaming the next you need to think of enhancing it.

4 Important Tips to Enhance the Live Chat Experience

One of the key aspects in keeping the engagement high and having an experience that is smooth and enjoyable for everybody lies in user interaction within the live chat. Apart from basic chat app features like notifying users of new chat messages, here are a few suggestions that can improve the chat experience while focusing on better communication and maintaining a healthy environment:

Tip 1: Allow richer, more expressive communication by allowing users to send emojis and GIFs.

Tip 2: Please let users have the ability to pin messages, view previous messages and also their pinned message to have context during or after the stream.

Tip 3: Make group chat, and creating chat rooms possible. This will create more oneness among the concurrent users and build community.

Tip 4: Make the chat space safe with moderation tool features such as:

• Ability to ban/mute users causing trouble
• Ability to report inappropriate chat messages
• Auto-filtering of offensive language through regex or AI models
• These are features that give the chat a dynamic, enjoyable, and safe place.

These three simple yet prominent tips have never failed to keep users tied with any live-streaming platform. These are tips that worked. Having uncovered the importance of the real time chat feature in your live streaming platform, be honest. Would to dare to skip integrating such a gold mine? No, yet you need to choose the right hands that have mastered the craftsmanship, the Appkodes’ Dev team

How live stream chat is Made Possible At Appkodes?

We are not just developing apps at Appkodes; we bring your live stream to life. Whether you’re looking to supercharge an existing live streaming platform or want to develop live streaming app for multiple platforms that promises the next-generation experience, we have you covered. Our innovative features such as live messaging, emojis, GIFs, chat history, and powerful moderation tools make your platform pop with seamless engagement.

With over 15 years of experience, more than 2,000+ projects delivered, and 280 happy clients globally, we have mastered the art of getting it done. Whether it’s scaling for high-traffic streams or ensuring your platform stays secure and smooth, we have the right technology and the right skills to make it happen.

Let’s make your live stream epic. Hit us up today!