The fine folks at RT Engineering held a Q&A livestream, hosted by @Barbara, to answer some burning questions about the all new roosterteeth.com, launching Friday March 30th. On the stream was Mike Quinn (@mikequinn), VP of Engineering, Adam Tyler (@lazy9669), Software Architect, John Revels (@revelsrouser), UX/UI and Video Platform Project Management, and Dave Pratt (@Dave) former "The Web Dude", Back end and Data Operations.
Here's a list of what was asked and answered.This list will focus on the more practical questions about the site, its features, and what's coming in the future for it.
Community site?
It's coming. There's a separate development team building it, and they have their own release cadence. There'll be similarly sized launches to it as there has been for svod, with updates to come over the next few months.
How is pubnub?
Pubnub is the engine behind the new live chat feature. Adam, who built the chat, has been working directly with them to ease out the growing pains and help them manage the load that RT chat sends them. Lot of learning for both RT and Pubnub.
When is the new app(s) launching?
Android and iOS apps launch Friday March 30th, alongside the full site release. Xbox and Apple TV aren't in new development currently.
Will the app(s) support Chromecast?
Yes, but not on initial release. It's super high on their priority list. Web casting does work currently.
Live chat moderation?
Slow mode, bots, community moderation and more features are all in the product backlog.
Search, video ordering, most recent?
Searching still needs to be fixed to make it user friendly. Allowing reverse chronological ordering is in the pipeline, as chronological ordering for some shows doesn't fit the show.
What was the design inspiration?
John Revels:
"Content is king, so I just wanted to make the best way to get content in front of people. There was definitely some inspiration from Netflix, from a lot of different video platforms. There's only a handful of ways to really layout content, but as much as possible I just wanted to get navigation out of the way so that it's there when you need it, and not when you don't."
Project Management tools and process?
Jira Project Tracking and an Agile Scrum process.
Watched Status on videos?
Current progress indication is on watch list only, and after load testing, some sort of indication will be implemented sitewide.
Pop out chat?
Yes. Eventually.
Offline download support?
Yes. Eventually.
FIRST exclusive features?
Some chats will be FIRST Only. Features will be content-centric, so what's FIRST to view will be FIRST to interact with.
Will the apps have video quality controls?
Yes. Eventually.
Community members involved in chat moderation?
Yes. It'll be primarily automated systems, but community member moderation will definitely be implemented.
Site Wide chat?
It'll start of as user to user chat, but will eventually build out to groups.
Watch Parties?
Feature coming down the line. Lots of site members watching the same content simultaneously, interacting with each other in a chat. Joinable, creatable, staff watch parties, new content and old content parties. Audio and Video would be synced across everyone in the party. Think rabbit, but better.
Will there be any downtime during the crossover?
Hopefully not. The exact time for crossover is still being decided. The community side might drop for some time, but the video product move should be reasonably seamless.
Background/Lock screen playback?
Yes. Eventually.
Schedule page?
Designed, being built. Won't be in place on release.
Other questions ranged from how much the team cried during the development of the site, to their favourite languages, to if they believe in aliens or ghosts.
If you've got any more questions for the team, their @'s are listed above, and they're all active across the site, Twitter, and the subreddit. The community features and profiles of V2 (this version of the site) will still be in place while the video site takes over as the main site.
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