Below is a Q&A session with Gregor Landwehr, Co-Founder and CMO of Contentflow. Gregor has after several years of experience in the media and broadcasting industry and a recognized expert in the field of live streaming.
Co-Founder and CMO at Contentflow
First, can you please give us a brief overview of your company? In which year was Contentflow founded? And what was the reason to create Contentflow?
A few years ago, when there were no live streaming functions on social networks, customers booked us to broadcast their events via live stream on their websites. That was the beginning of Contentflow. Because at that time there was no suitable software to implement the live stream, we decided to develop it ourselves. In the beginning, we only used it for our projects. But after a while, we sensed the huge demand for a product like our live streaming platform and started to develop it as a SaaS product. Since then, the Contentflow Livestreaming Platform has existed as standalone software that our customers around the world are using to plan and execute live streams.
Which customers are Contentflow aimed at?
We developed our product for professional users. Our first customers included media companies and event companies such as trade fairs. But now Contentflow users include large companies that use live streams for training and internal meetings. And we also have customers from the education sector, video production companies or event platforms. Wherever live streams need to reach larger numbers of viewers on a regular basis, we can come into play.
You have already written the genesis, how is that reflected in the product? According to which philosophy was the software developed?
With the Contentflow live streaming platform, we have developed a product that was designed from the beginning to be used in teams. If you work in a team and if you have several live streams at the same time, then Contentflow can provide an overview to help keep your team organized.
Anyone who has multiple live streams with different stream destinations, players, and input signals gets a very clear interface with us to manage all of that.
It is important to us to provide the necessary features for all steps in a live stream. This includes having the videos available immediately after the live stream and not having to wait here. And even during the live stream, you can access the video, edit and download them at any time. Social media teams love this feature! It’s a great way to cover events. Media companies also really appreciate this option for breaking news.
What problems does Contentflow solve for its customers?
We offer customers the ability to build a live streaming infrastructure for any application. The software integrates seamlessly into the existing environment, can be adapted to the corporate design and delivers live streams reliably, regardless of whether 100 viewers or several 10,000 are watching the live stream.
And because we’re compatible with any form of popular hardware, you can basically start using Contentflow right away and don’t have to change anything in the way you generate the image signal for the live streams.
It also gives our customers control over the most important thing they have: their content. Of course, with Contentflow you can also stream content in parallel to social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube. But at the same time, you can be sure that you can access the video file at any time and have it stored in your own sphere of influence.
What are the biggest pain points with live streaming? And how does Contentflow solve them?
A live stream should work smoothly, no matter how many viewers are watching and where they are watching it. We developed Contentflow to ensure that everything runs smoothly, especially with large numbers of participants. After all, user expectations are high here, and for most event organizers, providing the live stream in good quality is the biggest challenge.
A setting made up of different hardware and software components is always prone to errors. That’s why we want to bring everything together here on the software side and use common industry standards so that Contentflow fits well into production workflows.
Live Streaming is a big growth market. How do you see the market developing?
In the past few years, and especially in the last few months, we have seen the usage figures increase significantly once again. The most important thing here is that we see a sustainable trend here. Many people have experienced how live streams work and what they can do at events of any kind or in the area of sports, entertainment or education or for media and shopping. So these have a permanent place in businesses and will help us to improve exchanges and bring people together.
Technological developments such as 5G and 6G will make it more natural to consume live streams on the go. This indicates that quality will remain one of the most important factors, and new functions in the field of interaction will enrich live streams in the future.
Live streams will also be a very natural part of events of all kinds in the future.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
The special thing about live streaming is that it enables interaction with the viewers. A good example of this is the area of live shopping. At the moment, it’s chat tools in particular that are used for interaction. Here we will see more interactive possibilities in the future.
In the past few months, many have expanded the reach of events with live streaming, but offering them good quality was critical in their decision. And because we created the right setup for it, the expansion was also manageable.
About Contentflow
Contentflow is the global Next-Gen SaaS solution for multichannel, independent live streaming for events, conferences and media coverage. The Contentflow live streaming platform provides businesses and content creation teams with tools to edit, stream and distribute videos across multiple channels, improving marketing operations. Therefore, live streams will remain very important in the future.
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