Question 3 : Is your streaming player customisable ? “ For example , does it support visual overlays when people are speaking ? Content linkouts ? Polls , surveys and realtime viewer sentiment ? Can you monetize the stream by adding shoppable links to the keynote speaker ’ s book or event merchandise ?”

Security Security was the fourth area covered by Brightcove ’ s Rudolf . Planners too often discuss security concerns with the platform but neglect to ask likeminded questions to the thirdparty streaming provider . Rudolf advises covering off the following points :

Question 1 : Does your streaming platform offer Digital Rights Management ( DRM )? “ In a nut-shell , DRM is intellectual property protection . It ’ s the most secure way to send video

content and to ensure that it ’ s only played back on the devices you want it to be accessed by . If your events include sensitive information , unreleased news , forward-looking statements or entertainment-based content you were planning on charging viewers for in the future , DRM has to be there , in order to prevent unauthorized recording and distribution .”

Question 2 : Can you restrict event access by geography , domain or IP address ? “ It ’ s a nice-to-have for some companies and completely mandatory for others . You may want to restrict access from certain countries , companies or competitors . You simply may be planning different versions of the same event for different territories , based on different customs , local laws or religious beliefs and you can ’ t have them overlapping . Or you may want to geo-fence your event so that only people within the proximity can interact .”

Question 3 : Is your streaming platform GDPR compliant ? “ Can you turn that compliance on and off so that you can collect certain profile information from regions where it ’ s allowed ? How is the IP addresses of your audience stored and what happens to that data once the event has finished ? These are the types of questions you need to ask in order to avoid risk and a potential lawsuit .”

Support The concluding area of due diligence covered relates to support . Rudolf advises asking the following three questions :

Question 1 : Is day of event support included in the streaming price ? “ If a stream starts to misbehave during an event , you need to know that someone is monitoring it in real-time and catching any issues as they arise before they become catastrophic .”

Question 3 : Are there other major events running on the same day as mine , which will require your support team ? “ Is the support team dedicated to your event or could they be distracted by activity going on elsewhere ? If you ’ re running a 3,000-capacity conference and you find out you ’ re sharing the streaming support team with the unveiling of the latest electric Tesla or a Federal press conference , it will undoubtedly impact the level of support and attention you ’ ll receive .”

“ WHAT DOES

THE TEAM

OF PEOPLE

SUPPORTING

MY EVENT LOOK

LIKE ? ARE THEY

NETWORK

ENGINEERS , ARE

THEY STREAMING

EXPERTS ? “