Ali Ragimov Revolutionized a Popular Streaming Service With a Web-Based Media Player

Media players have come a long way since the early days of hardware devices that allowed you to play movies in your living room. With on-demand movies, shows, and other forms of entertainment, sophisticated media players are a requirement to ensure a good customer experience.

Without the masses of developers, programmers, and coders committed to innovation, we wouldn’t have the smooth media players that keep our Youtube, Netflix, and even Facebook or TikTok browsing, a satisfying experience.

Ali Ragimov is one of those coders; he spent his career learning front-end and back-end skills and worked on many high-impact projects. One that he is most proud of, however, is the creation of a customer media player based on Shaka Player for Okko, a Russian streaming platform.

When Ali started out at Okko, its main offering was a smart TV feature. The organization didn’t think investing in a web player would be the right move because entertainment could be easily pirated online for free.

However, when Okko decided to take a chance on web content, they hired the perfect person to make that content smooth and accessible, Ali Ragimov.

The new player allowed Okko’s web content to stream as HD content instead of lower-quality SD content, to show closed captions and play audio tracks in different languages, to adapt the video stream to the changing internet quality, to playback restoring from the place user left last time, to use convenient hotkeys, and multiple other great features which modern players have to provide back in the days.

It became clear that people were willing to pay for quality even if pirated content could be found for free. With an incredible playback experience for users, the reimagined player revitalized Okko’s belief in web content, and, in turn, increased content sales by 30%. 

The ability to program and develop software that can handle the kind of demand that users require can be hard. As Ali Ragimov, with 5 years at Okko and an experienced media player developer, explains,

“It was a great challenge for me to come to the realization that Okko could offer to its users what other piracy platforms could not offer, mostly in terms of features and conveniences. On top of this, it demanded lots of effort to select the necessary technologies and decide how to implement them all together to provide users the highest quality experience”

Though Ali had already made a major impact on his employer’s success, it was only the starting point. Later, when Okko was launching a new business direction with live-streaming sports, Ali adapted the player to support live broadcasting and integrated an anti-grabbing solution, which was extremely important for keeping the English Premier League license. It also integrated a peer-to-peer broadcasting solution for users, allowing them to stream games with each other. 

Front-end development is crucial to the success of any kind of product and is especially true in the digital industry. Ali spent his career learning just how important this work was for the customer experience.

In a prior role, he developed an online banking portal for legal persons for Sberbank, one of the biggest banks in Russia. Though media and banking are two very different industries, Ali learned that by understanding how customers move through life, you can develop a product that makes their day easier.

Not all developers can see how each tool or new technology will impact end users, but Ali has a natural talent for it, and he’s just getting started.

Now, Ali works for Sphere Partners Company as a front-end developer. He supports a major CRM project for a large petroleum company and has developed a system for distributing electric vehicle chargers.

His current role has nothing to do with media players or streaming services, but it is his ability to put himself in the mind of each customer that sets him apart from other developers.

In his free time, he loves to work on his own projects and is eager to learn about developing productivity tools, environmental care products, and even smart homes.