Challenge: Vidyard's existing notification feed solution wasn't as feature-rich or flexible as it needed. The engineering team sought a new solution that was easy to integrate and could deliver a top-notch user experience.
Strategy: A quick Google search presented Engineering Director Scott MacLellan with Stream Feeds—the answer to Vidyard's new solution search and the final piece of its Chrome extension launch.
Result: MacLellan integrated Stream Feeds with Vidyard in a single weekend; it now powers notifications for millions of global users of the business's Chrome extension, main dashboard, and parts of its mobile app.
About Vidyard
Vidyard promotes personalization in virtual selling by enabling teams to incorporate video into every stage of the sales cycle. Sales professionals can leverage Vidyard to stand out in the crowd, showcase their product and personality, boost response rates, and tailor unique follow-up messages to prospects. Vidyard is also a useful tool for marketers, they can use it to seamlessly embed video on their website, view insightful performance analytics, and even deliver ad-free streaming to viewers.
The Build vs. Buy Decision
It was six years ago that Vidyard chose to buy rather than build an activity feed solution. "We're using the Javascript backend client. I believe we dusted it off in 2016 and have enjoyed it ever since," says Engineering Director Scott MacLellan.
Vidyard's decision to integrate Stream Feeds lined up with the launch of the business's Chrome extension.
MacLellan adds, "We realized we needed a fully powered notifications feed. We tried dabbling in making our own but weren't getting anywhere---so I was frustrated. I went and looked online and found Stream almost immediately, and it answered all of our problems and needs."
The Integration Process
With the product launch date rapidly approaching, time was running out for Vidyard to find the right solution.
MacLellan continues, "We had some existing, initial notifications infrastructure we built in-house—but when it came to the real-time updates and just how smoothly it (Stream) integrated and the time-frame we had, it didn't make sense to develop our in-house solution any further. When we saw that Stream ticked all the boxes, it was a clear choice."
The integration process was quick and easy for the Vidyard team. MacLellan says, "I spent a very exciting weekend building it, putting it together, and integrating it with our application. We had everything we needed to be done for our launch later that week, and it looked great, did exactly what we wanted, and we loved it."Â
Reflecting on Six Years With StreamÂ
Stream's Community Feeds API has enabled the Vidyard team to scale confidently without worries of load impacting app performance or usability. Its rich list of features, including feed aggregation, reactions, notifications, and URL enrichment, provides the best possible UX to Vidyard customers, and Stream's extensive and consistently updated docs make it easy for the team's engineers to continue iterating and improving upon their product.
MacLellan says, "We've been happy using the product. Everything's been so smooth and good. I'm almost surprised at how little maintenance we've had to do over the past six years. Even from the initial setup to continuing to improve and iterate on it, everything just works."
Try Stream Feeds free for 30 days—no credit card required.