How we built TaTaTu – the first social network that incentivizes users

Founded in 2020 by a film producer and entrepreneur, TaTaTu is the first social media and entertainment application that rewards users for spending time there. Users receive TaTaTu Coins for viewing content and social media interactions. They can post photos and videos and earn even more coins when they invite friends.

Incentives can be redeemed in multiple ways, including bidding at auctions, purchasing on the TTU eCommerce website, etc. What sets TaTaTu apart from similar social networks is that it focuses on culture, inclusion, gender equality, and sustainability through numerous initiatives.

The challenge: boosting app performance and quality

When they contacted Vega IT, the client had already worked on their social media application for years. Their primary goal was to enhance the app's overall appeal, performance, and quality.

TaTaTu wasn’t looking for just any software development agency. They needed a reliable tech partner with extensive domain experience and software development skills. And, that’s where Vega IT stepped in.

The four-person squad of developers as an extension of the client’s team

The client already employed in-house skilled engineers and project managers. What they required was a team of experienced developers who would be a great culture fit and deliver the desired results fast. We formed a four-person team that worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the client’s developers.

The result: the first social network that rewards users

As an extension of TaTaTu’s team, we contributed to the development of the first social media and entertainment platform that cares about its users and incentivizes them. Over time, the app proved to be a great success. According to TaTaTu’s statistics, at the end of August 2022, the number of users increased four times compared to the number of users at the beginning of January 2022.

So, how exactly did we contribute to the project’s success?

Driving success by delivering vast domain experience

The client already had a team of experts. Vega IT stepped in as their support. Given our great experience in the industry, we quickly familiarized ourselves with the project objectives, challenges, and pain points.

That allowed us to integrate with the client’s teams with ease and be actively involved in project implementation. We took part in decision-making, provided feedback, and gave actionable recommendations, estimations, and ideas.

Increasing efficiency through system integrations

• Provisioning the MongoDB ReplicaSet on EC2 instances

Initially, the client relied on MongoDB Atlas which, at the time, was not supported by the cloud provider used – AWS. To improve the overall efficiency and minimize expenses, we opted for the ReplicaSet on EC2 instances as a solution, enabling database server redundancy. We used a proven RHEL-based distribution, Rocky Linux, with the AWS EC2 Instance Store. Considering that there were multiple environments requiring implementation, we achieved significant cost reduction and higher database performance.

• A global accelerator

One of our primary goals was to prepare the infrastructure to serve the requests from users from all across the globe – without even the slightest delay. Since static data caching was not enough to achieve that, we relied on AWS's Global Accelerator. By implementing it, traffic routing through the AWS internal network was enabled, reducing server response time by up to 50% in some cases.

Finding elegant solutions to TaTaTu’s specific problems

The client was looking for professionals with extensive knowledge in mobile development, iOS, Android, AWS, and .NET. And, that’s exactly where Vega IT made a difference. From the technical viewpoint, we contributed to the project on multiple levels:

• Bug fixing
• Refactoring the app’s existing code so that it withstands greater traffic volumes
• Adding new features to the app parallel with code refactoring
• Writing tools that would improve the information in the database
• Taking part in solving various crucial platform optimizations
• Process automation
• Creating custom solutions that meet the specific needs of the project. For example, the app is large, meaning we needed to make sure that some of its components can be reusable.

The tech stack:

• Android, Android SDK, Kotlin
• AWS(ECS Fargate, ECS EC2), Terraform
• .NET, Redis, Mongo, SQL Server, MySQL
• iOS, Swift, SwiftUI, Combine
• RabbitMQ, SignalR