High Demand Industries Will Continue to Mature in 2021

By Todd Greene, CEO, PubNub

When people made their 2020 resolutions, no one could have predicted the way that the world would drastically shift. Fueled by the surge of critical industries such as eLearning, telemedicine, and streaming events from concerts to church services, this new virtual requirement kept the nation as we knew it churning forward. As a real-time communication platform used by these types of services, PubNub has seen significant growth as a result of COVID and the resulting quarantine orders world-wide. As companies have increasingly had to shift to operating virtually, our customers have seen an increased demand for services like virtual live events, telemedicine, gaming, and eLearning industries.

Looking at the initial usage surges for various industries in early 2020, these tools and services will continue to grow and evolve in features next year:

eLearning - Educators proved they can successfully educate students remotely and that the quality of learning doesn't suffer by moving from in-person instruction to a virtual classroom. 2021 will see more tools that facilitate learning, in and out of the classroom, including virtual whiteboards, live webcasts, slideshows, live quizzes and instant feedback/grading. We'll start seeing more schools with a "remote-first" mindset, teaching students around the world through an at-home internet connection. ELearning will continue to play a critical role as part of a normal curriculum, as online chat, real-time quizzes and feedback, and interactive whiteboards for student projects continue to be beneficial.

Telemedicine - With both patients and staff not wanting to risk in-person office visits, virtual provider appointments became crucial for consultations, checkups, and prescriptions- not just for large facilities and hospitals, but also for family care providers. Using the new tools available, doctors and healthcare providers can go beyond just video calls and offer HIPAA secure real-time chat, document and medical record sharing, and simple scheduling for patients. With the many telehealth focused apps emerging and establishing, we foresee that telehealth will remain at the frontlines of healthcare as the first touch point for routine checkups as well as acute symptom checking. Telemedicine offers the utmost convenience, so patients are no longer forced to take time out of their day to travel to and from in-person appointments for simple check-ups, such as prescription refills or mild cold and flu symptoms.

Live Events - While events are all about the experience of meeting and seeing other people, the world is finding that corporate events can still be valuable as virtual events, and even concerts can maintain their allure with interactive features such as live chat with other fans. When possible, demand for virtual sporting events and musical concerts and festivals will decrease when in-person events are possible again, however the corporate world will continue to explore the time and money saving route of virtual conferences going forward. For large venues, virtual events will also continue as part of the ticket sales process, where attendees can get access to keynotes and sessions either live or on-demand for a discount. As more live events seek to develop immersive, virtual experiences for audiences in this new remote era, platforms must provide a wealth of interactive capabilities such as live chat,  adding reactions, polls, leaderboards, and other social features that allow audiences to participate in real time, and scale y to support millions of concurrent users.

Technologies that power remote-first experiences and communication will remain an ingrained part of our everyday lives in 2021.While the exponential growth will likely not continue, usage for these valuable services as we continue to see that virtual experiences and interactions can often be just as rewarding and impactful as in-person ones.

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About the Author

Todd is the CEO and co-founder of PubNub, a real-time communication platform. As an entrepreneur who has founded and successfully sold companies across the software spectrum, Todd helps shape the PubNub vision of revolutionizing the way people interact online.