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Social Media Product Case Study

TopSpot

A video-first contest platform designed to give more creators a fair chance to be discovered

Created By

Virtual Coders

Industry

Social Media

Client

TopSpot LLC

Year

2022

Results at a Glance

Project Duration8 months
IndustrySocial Media
PlatformMobile app and web administration
Team Size9 team members
TechnologiesCassandra, Angular, Scala and AWS
Business OutcomeA contest-led social video product

Client Context & Business Objective

Client Background: TopSpot was conceived as a short-form video competition community built around the belief that creative opportunity should not depend entirely on an existing follower count. The product needed to support contest creation, participation, judging and global video discovery in one experience.

Business Goals: The goal was to create an approachable and secure product where people could launch contests, contribute videos, browse entries and take part in voting while the platform handled video volume, variable connections, moderation and continued growth.

Project Objectives: Virtual Coders was engaged to design and develop the mobile experience, supporting APIs, administration tools and AWS cloud foundation required for a video-heavy social platform.

Challenge

A video contest platform must manage frequent uploads, different file sizes and formats, playback across changing network conditions, and a potentially large concurrent audience.

It also needs moderation, secure user and transaction handling, fair contest behaviour, and practical administration of content and activity.

These concerns had to work together as one product rather than as separate technical features.

Strategy & Engagement Approach

  • Product rules and user journeys: Contest creation, entry, browsing, judging, winner selection and administration were treated as connected journeys.

  • Resilient video handling: Upload behaviour was planned for interruptions and changing connectivity, including resumable uploads.

  • Playback and cloud delivery: Compression, optimisation, storage and progressive loading supported access across devices and network conditions.

  • Safety and operation: Moderation, user protection, administration and monitoring were included in the wider delivery scope.

Solution showcase 1
Solution showcase 2

The Solution

Virtual Coders developed a mobile-led social platform where users can create contests, explore active competitions, upload short-form video entries, participate in voting and select winners. The implementation addressed resumable uploads, file compression, cloud storage, progressive playback, content moderation and administration. The surrounding architecture and monitoring tools were selected for a media-heavy product.

Implementation & Deliverables

Technology Stack

  • Cassandra
  • Angular
  • Scala
  • Firebase
  • Grafana
  • Instabug
  • Logentries
  • AWS S3

Key Integrations

  • Cloud video storage
  • Application monitoring
  • Mobile issue reporting
  • Content moderation workflow

Deliverables

  • Mobile application
  • Web-based administration platform
  • API layer
  • Contest journeys
  • Video upload and playback
  • AWS cloud infrastructure
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TOPSPOT

Frequently Asked Questions

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Building a Video-First Social Platform?

Discuss a Similar Project

TopSpot is a video-first social platform built around creative contests. Users can create competitions, upload short-form video entries, discover active contests, participate in voting and select winners within one connected experience.

Virtual Coders designed and developed the mobile application, supporting APIs, web-based administration platform and AWS cloud foundation. The engagement also covered contest journeys, video upload and playback, moderation and operational monitoring.

The video workflow included resumable uploads so interrupted transfers could continue instead of forcing users to restart. Compression, cloud storage and progressive playback also helped make video participation more practical across different devices and connection speeds.

Contest creation, entry submission, voting, winner selection and administration were planned as connected workflows. Moderation tools and administrative controls gave the operating team a practical way to review content and manage platform activity.

The solution used Cassandra, Angular, Scala, Firebase and AWS S3, supported by tools such as Grafana, Instabug and Logentries for monitoring, issue reporting and operational visibility.

A media-heavy social product needs dependable storage, delivery and monitoring as video activity changes. The cloud foundation supported the upload, storage and playback workflows while giving the team a stronger operational base for continued product growth.