WAKEFIELD, Mass., Aug. 12, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xura, Inc. (NASDAQ:MESG), a major innovator in Real-Time Communication (RTC) technology, today announced it received the Best Social Integration Award from TMC, Systemwide Media and PKE Consulting for its forge by Xura platform, which provides real-time communication capabilities within new social fitness app, Weqool. Built by Weqool and Xura partner, Blacc Spot Media, a leading WebRTC, mobile and web application development house, the app was showcased and demoed for the first time during The Getting Real with RTC demo event at TMC’s Real Time Web Solutions Conference in New York, on the August 3rd, 2016.
The web-based prototype utilized forge’s SDK and, during The Getting real demo, Xura, Weqool and Blacc Spot Media showed how a combination of video and instant messaging (IM) interfaces – all features available in the forge by Xura RTC platform – enables users to meet, communicate, compete and grow friendships while exercising together virtually. Weqool’s aim was to create a more social and immersive fitness experience, through the use of RTC functionality, providing an interactive, user-friendly platform designed for users to watch recorded workouts, created by professional fitness trainers, while also facilitating positive user interactions via video call, IM and SMS.
JF Sullivan, EVP Enterprise & CMO at Xura, said: “We are incredibly proud of this award, our third consecutive from TMC, Systemwide Media and PKE Consulting. The gamification of apps is a trend that is proving to work successfully, particularly when it comes to health and fitness. If you’re looking to get fit, what’s more motivating than having fun with your friends? This prototype from Weqool, takes the forge SDK and does just that; now you can level up with your friends or fitness instructor anytime, anywhere and on any device – a little less monotonous than slogging away alone on the treadmill.”
Lantre Barr, Founder & CEO, Blacc Spot Media went on to say, “When start-up, Weqool approached us about wanting to enhance user engagement within their fitness app, we knew they would need something that could be implemented quickly and easily. Having worked with the forge platform before with other clients, we knew we could add things like click-to-communicate video, voice, IM, group chat and conferencing and recording features very easily and with the flexibility of supporting a variety of channels accessible by any device.”
Alex Bulley, Co-Founder of Weqool commented, “Our aim was to reinvent the concept of online fitness, by facilitating positive interactions among users with common interests through the medium of Weqool, making exercising more fun, engaging and social. It has been a very exciting journey to bring our proof of concept to life, and to be recognized for our work at this early stage and during our first live outing is validation that our concept has legs prior to an official launch. We are excited about what our future has in store as we work to bring the app to market.”
The highly-anticipated return of the live Getting Real with RTC Demonstrations was held in conjunction with The Real Time Web Solutions Conference, co-located with DevCon 5 Web & Mobile App Developer Conference, and is dedicated to the use of WebRTC to enhance engagement capabilities into apps or websites. Hosted by Phil Edholm, President and Principal at PKE Consulting LLC & UC Strategies.com, the Judges used a scale of 1 to 10 in seven categories for each of the 12 awards to determine the winners. Competing companies only had 10 minutes to tell their stories, demonstrating their WebRTC capabilities in a live environment, presenting product demos and/or video clips, to convince a judging panel of independent thought leaders in the WebRTC community, why their implementation should be recognized as a winner.
For more information about the Weqool app, and its fully immersive social experience which joins users together based on their shared interests in skills and activities, you can watch their commercial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6__EmaoqzIs
By simply signing up, activating an account and joining the forge community at http://portal.forge.xura.com, enterprises and developers can enhance the experience of their app or pioneer new services or use cases, while growing and managing engagement opportunities by implementing real-time, secure peer-to-peer, one-to-many and group interaction. To find out more or sign up for a forge account, visit: forge.xura.com
About Xura, Inc.
Xura offers a portfolio of digital services solutions that enable global communications across a variety of mobile devices and platforms. We help communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises navigate and monetise the digital ecosystem to create innovative, new experiences through our cloud-based offerings. Our solutions touch more than three billion people through 350+ service providers and enterprises in 140+ countries. You can find us at Xura.com.
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