Context
During the pandemic, events moved online almost overnight. Superminds, one of them, was essentially a YouTube stream embedded in WordPress, and it needed real interaction with its audience.
My role
Co-built the product end to end with a partner, a two-person team: architecture, frontend, real-time signalling and WordPress integration.
Decisions we made
- An interaction layer around the video, not inside it. POLx wrapped the stream with additional content and interaction, independent of the video provider.
- A chat owned by the event, not by the platform. Unlike a YouTube chat, it belonged to the organizer, was reachable from the web and from Telegram, and the conversation could continue after the broadcast.
- Live control from an operator console. The event’s director could push content to every attendee’s browser, launch polls and change the screen layout in real time, for example giving the video more space at key moments.
- Node-RED as the real-time hub. It already solved client connectivity (MQTT over WebSockets), so a two-person team could skip building a custom backend and iterate much faster under event deadlines. Frontend built with Vue.js.
- A standalone, reusable module rather than a one-off integration.
Outcome
First used at Superminds, then reused for online tourism events of the Agència Catalana de Turisme, and finally acquired by a buyer who saw its potential.