by Tom McDonnell, Co-founder & CEO,
Aug 2023
In the wild world of software there has long been a debate about whether to build something in-house or buy it from a third-party.
This debate is often framed as a binary choice: you either build it yourself, or you buy it. Vendor says buy, CTO days build in-house.
This dichotomy, while still extremely common, is a false one. With the multitude of cloud options available today there is no need to choose between building and buying. Instead, we can all get the best of both worlds with a hybrid approach.
This is exactly how we envisioned Monterosa / Interaction Cloud from the start. We allow you to take ready-made apps and configure them. But you can drop in your own code, write your own, and build your own connectors and plug-ins. You get to the end result: your own fan engagement experiences leveraging a vast library of pre-existing capabilities.
After all, who wants to invest R&D budgets building vote auditing, scalable socket server infrastructure, dynamic app configuration or self service user management?
Are you ready to spend millions in building control systems for two-way interactivity, only to find your InfoSec team demand SAML integration for enterprise use?
With systems like ours, in-house engineering teams save time on the common parts and get to build out the parts of their experience that deserve or need to be unique.
In some instances, uniqueness can be generated through the content rather than the user interface or core behaviour. Configure, rehearse and go.
In others, it may be important to generate an entirely custom and proprietary game mechanic – preserving competitive edge and intellectual property as a result.
We created an engagement platform that consciously supports the full spectrum of options, meaning an in-house team retains control via both no-code and own-code routes, avoiding getting locked into a white label style dependency common with ad-campaign widget SaaS tools.
Here are a few examples of how the platform can help you build engaging fan experiences:
Prediction games
You can build prediction games that allow fans to predict the outcome of games or events. Monterosa / Interaction Cloud provides all of the functionality you need to create a fun and engaging prediction game, without having to worry about the underlying technology. Content management, scheduling and automation interfaces for any feed.
Voting
The platform can be used to create voting experiences for fans to have their say on important decisions, surveys or even the next song to play in an encore. The platform provides all of the functionality you need to create a secure and reliable live voting experience, without having to worry about the underlying technology or security standards. Reporting, sign in validation, anomaly, detection… Good luck, building all of that before the deadline!
Your own UI in apps
Teams can now create their own apps or individual UI in web and native apps, using SDKs for iOS, Android, and JavaScript. This means that you can create an app that looks and feels exactly the way you want it to, without having to worry about the complexity of building underlying systems from scratch. Build inline predictions, live ratings, competition, entry forms and leave the platform to handle the heavy lifting.
If your team want to avoid the constraints of product lock-in and have the flex to build their own, maybe Monterosa / Interaction Cloud is a fit for you.
