Sponsored by:

Christmas is just around the corner and Advertise Me has decided to give something back to the digital signage community by running a competition before the Christmas festive season (you can say it’s our Christmas present to the winning business).

The objective of this competition is to help businesses showcase their digital signage deployments through case studies. Having been in the business for several years now, we know and have come across many interesting and innovative digital signage solutions from several business around the world and we want to share these solutions with others – we also know that the online community is interested in this area as well.

The competition will commence from the 1st December 2008 9am EDST and will end on the 31st December 2008 5pm EDST so don’t miss out!

The winner of the competition will receive 2 months of FREE sponsorship and advertising on the digital signage blog.

What is the competition about?

We know that all over the world, digital signage deployments are being successfully completed on a daily basis. Many of these businesses that are involved in digital signage do not have the opportunity to showcase their digital signage solution as they may not have the avenue or the means to do so.

Our competition will help these businesses to showcase their digital signage deployments to the rest of the digital signage community.

Basically, this competition is about showcasing YOUR digital signage case study.

The competition is not limited by the size of your business or the size of your rollout. So no matter how big or small your digital signage solution is, all businesses will have the opportunity to enter.

How to enter the competition?

1. In order to enter the competition, you will need to register on the digital signage portal – www.digitalsignageportal.com. Existing digital signage portal members are encouraged to submit their case studies as well.
2. Once you have successfully registered on www.digitalsignageportal.com go to the digital signage portal forum and create a new thread in the forum category called “Digital Signage Case Study“. For example, the title of the thread can be ‘[Company Name]: Successfully installs digital signage at the ABC’.
3. Submit your case study – it can be a video link, a link to your company’s website, an attachment or the complete text.

If you want to view all the latest case studies click here.

That’s all you will have to do. If you need some help in submitting a case study please contact info@advertiseme.com.au

How will we judge the entries?

There will be a panel of judges and they will assess each case study based on:

*Innovation Provided (the overall creativeness of the digital signage solution)
*Uniqueness (how is the solution different to others)
*Customer Satisfaction (in what ways did the customer benefit from the solution)

advertise me will announce the winner on the 12th January 2009 5pm EDST on the digitalsignageblog.com. The FREE advertising and sponsorship will commence on the 19th January 2009 9am EDST.

What will the winner receive?

The winner of this competition will receive the following:

1. The winning case study will be listed at the top of the Digital Signage Case Study forum topic on the www.digitalsignageportal.com.
2. The case study will be featured on the Digital Signage blog (www.digitalsignageblog.com) and the Digital Signage Portal (www.digitalsignageportal.com).

3. 2 months FREE sponsorship and advertising – this is a 125 x 125 image located in sponsorship section and a 300×250 banner on the right hand column of the digitalsignageblog.com website.

For more information about our advertising options click here.

Terms and conditions

1. Each business can only submit a maximum of 3 case studies and Advertise Me will not accept duplicate entries. Duplicate entries from the same business will be removed.
2. In order to enter the competition you must submit the case study within the period mentioned above. Any late submissions will not be accepted.
3. You must ensure your business name is clearly stated within the case study.
4. The business must own the necessary rights to publish the case study, this includes both copyright and intellectual property rights.
5. By submitting a case study you give us permission to republish the case study on all websites owned by Advertise Me.

6. The winning business will need to supply the banner advertisement and must comply with the dimensions requested by Advertise Me

7. The terms and conditions may change so please revisit these terms and conditions on a regular basis.

Would you like to become a sponsor of this competition? If so, contact info@advertiseme.com.au.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Events, Digital Signage Blog News

We came across an article that we thought our readers would be interested in reading. The article is about a new LED Billboard in Times Square which is officially the largest LED screen in the world.  For those techies they would love to have worked on this project as it uses some very interesting and the latest technologies. Just even looking at the pictures you’ll be amazed to the amount of grunt and gear the system uses to drive content to the LED screen.

Have a read of the article from Gizmodo and you’ll be amazed as well.

Our Question:
What’s the worlds largest LCD screen?

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Featured Post

This year the Australian Idol show was quite different from the previous years. Some of the changes that were made in this show were:

1. No more Mark Holden – although the famous “touchdowns” was performed by the other judges

2. Additional performances by the bottom 3 contestants on the eviction night (Monday)

3. But the most significant change that we saw was the use of digital signage for communicating information to the viewers and internal staff. This was evident in the final show where 1 large screen and 4 other smaller screens were used in the tally room to display dynamic information. Also, if you were watching the final show, you probably noticed that at the Opera House, large screens were used to display the live performances and occasionally followed by the events sponsor ads.

I believe that it’s quite interesting to see broadcasting organisations using LCD screens to further increase advertising revenues whilst showing the performance on air.

Congratulations to the winner of this year’s Australian Idol (Wes) and good luck to all the other contestants.

Our question:
Have you seen any TV shows which embraces digital signage technologies?

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Several weeks ago I had relatives visiting from overseas, so being a host I decided to take them out sightseeing to the major “tourist” locations in Sydney. I must be honest with you, it’s been a while since I’ve done that so I was quite surprised to see a number of businesses using Digital Signage at the front of their stores in the main streets of Sydney. The majority of the stores were Mobile Phone companies such as Telstra and Optus (there was also a couple of banks as well).

Whilst walking around the Sydney Opera house, I was stopped by one of my relatives and he said “What is that?”. I turned around and I saw a large portrait plasma screen showing “What’s on” information and local advertisements. Here’s a couple of pictures of what we were looking at (click on the images to make them bigger):

“Ah!” I thought to myself, this is a great opportunity to talk about my business “Advertise Me“, so I started talking about digital signage (actually it was more like giving him a sales pitch). But before I could finish, he stopped me and he said, “No, that’s not what I meant. What’s that annoying text doing in the background”.

At that stage I didn’t really know what he was talking about, so I carefully looked at the screen again and I couldn’t believe that I didn’t notice it the first time. *Have a look at the images again and see if you can spot it* If you haven’t figured it out yet, click on these two images below:

He was basically referring to the burns on the plasma screen. Now, because I’ve seen this before on other plasma screens I started telling him how it could have potentially got there – the WHITE text was too bright and the text being displayed on the same area was too frequent.

This screen definitely needs to be “burnt” and replaced – no one likes looking at a screen with noticeable burns as it can distract the viewers from looking at the messages the business is trying to convey.

With the cost of LCD screens coming down, plasma screens are becoming obsolete, but if you’re still using plasma screens  you may want to our forum post called “Guidelines to prevent plasma burns” on the digital signage portal.

Our question:
Has your plasma screens ever experienced the burn in effect or have you ever seen any screens with noticable burns?

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News

There are several ways to receive the latest digital signage portal forum posts and these are listed below:

1. Email Subscription – on the top left hand side column of the digital signage portal website there is a section called Forum Posts Subscription – all you have to do is enter your email address and hit the subscribe button. Once you have successfully subscribed, you will receive daily forum updates via email.

Enter your email address to receive daily forum updates:

Delivered by FeedBurner

2. RSS feed – at the bottom right hand corner of the forum you will notice the RSS button. The RSS feed you should subscribe to is: http://www.digitalsignageportal.com/component/option,com_fbfeed/f,1/func,rss/

   Just use your default RSS reader/viewer to receive the latest forum entries.

3. digitalsignageportal.blogspot.com – visit this website and you’ll be able to view the latest forum posts.

Our question:
What do you use RSS feeds for in your digital signage solutions?

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News

One of our members on the digital signage portal submitted a very interesting and intriguing post about establishing a world wide network of small digital signage operators. My thought on this is how we go about approaching this and what standards, if any should all the operators follow.

Has anyone else thought about this approach or wanting to establish a digital signage network with other operators? If so, feel free to participate in the discussion forum.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Today is Jayden’s birthday (the son of one of our staff members) – he turned 1 so the Advertise Me team wanted to wish him a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!”. Now, grow up quick so that you can be part of the advertise me team, this shirt might be too big for you now but you’ll grow into it soon.

Here’s the cake that one of your aunties made (thanks Lilia), its one of the best cakes that I have ever seen.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Today, we came across a news article titled “Porn shock for tourists”  – just from reading the title of the article you’re thinking – “what has this got to do with digital signage?”. There is a lesson to learn from this article so here is a copy of the article:

Computer pranksters in Croatia hacked into tourism board computers and downloaded blue movies onto a town centre information screen.

Red faced officials in Slavonski Brod managed to shut down the link but only after a cheering crowd had gathered around the screen, which normally gives cultural tips to visitors.

Police called in special IT crime experts to help track down the hackers.

Meanwhile the local council have pledged to splash out on a computer security upgrade to make sure nothing similar happens again.

Deputy mayor Zeljka Kristof said: “This is something we take very seriously because we have worked hard to give our town an image among tourists and visitors that we do not want sullied in any way.

“This incident shocked a lot of people and made our visitors feel very uncomfortable. It just proves our computer systems need to be made more secure.”

Source: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3074964.html

Like any other IT solution, digital signage needs to be secure – it needs to protect the solution from hackers and unauthorised access. In this case, the screen was hijacked and the tourist information was replaced with a porn video. We might have giggled when reading the article but it’s a serious issue if it happened to us *Not many parents would have been impressed if their children were there*. The consequences could have been more devastating – the screen could have been used to display sensitive information.

Like the Internet, digital signage solutions have many vulnerabilities and security holes and it is the responsibility of the network operators to ensure the solution is secure.

We also previously talked about ways to mitigate various security issues in our previous post called “How Secure Is Your Digital Signage Solution?“. Here’s the link if you’re interested to read further.

Lesson learnt: make sure your digital signage solution is secure before you have the public looking at your screen!!!

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News

digital signage blog is viewed by thousands of unique people every month and this number continues to grow with the high popularity and interest in digital signage technologies.

We are partnered together with our sister site Digital Signage Portal combined to maximise our audience and your exposure.

Whether you want to showcase a new product or just be heard, this is the opportunity for you to reach out to the digital signage community and stir up some viral impressions.

Quick Stats

• Thousands of unique visitors every month to a global audience (and growing)
• Ranked 1st out of 3.5 million search entries from google.com (as well as google.com.au, google.co.uk, etc)
• Top Ten Digital Signage Blogs by Nate Nead
• Our blog entries are used and displayed by other digital signage websites and blogs
• Increasingly growing number of daily RSS readers
• Over 95% of our readers have some sort of involvement in the digital signage industry, and all have a found knowledge in digital signage technologies

(Detailed statistics are available upon request)

Our blog entries are also picked up by Google Alerts for all users using the Google Alerts notification service (on digital signage). If we post a blog entry on that day, you can be sure that users subscribed to the service will receive a link to our blog entry in that day’s alert.

Advertising and Sponsorship

We currently offer two ways of advertising – through Ads and Sponsorships.

Ads

Ads are served on a rotation basis with a selection of either at the top header of the page (468 x 60), on the right side pane below the sponsors (300 x 250), or both (discount applies for multiple ads).

Ads are offered on an impressions basis and are available in prepaid blocks.

Sponsorship

Sponsorships are made available in the dedicated sponsorship section on the right side pane (125 x 125). They do not rotate and stay fixed.

Sponsorships are offered at a fixed monthly rate (discount applies for longer periods).

We also provide statistics of both the advertising and sponsorship campaigns for your benefit.

If you’d like to advertise through our blog or secure a sponsorship with us, please contact us here and we can help you come up with a suitable plan. Or simply email us at info@digitalsignageblog.com.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News

Today is Melbourne Cup day in Australia – for those of you who don’t know what this event is about have a quick wiki read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Cup
You may be wondering “what is all the excitement about a horse racing event”, but like the “Superbowl” and any of the “World Cup Events” at approximately 3:00pm almost the whole nation stops to watch this event. Mind you, the event is also about dressing up for the glamour, drinking, gambling but more importantly, bringing people together to celebrate an annual horse race.

So just before the start of the race, millions of people in Australia have their eyes glue to screens to watch the event. If you’re a pub owner or a shop owner have you thought about ways of promoting your own products during this event? If not, then you’re obviously missing out on making money.

With the current digital signage technology out in the market, you will be able to display Live TV feeds whilst displaying your own advertising. Have a quick read of this previous post for more information about this technology.
Good luck to those who are placing bets!!!

Category: Digital Signage Blog Events, Digital Signage Blog News

If you’re a business and are new to digital signage, the first thing that you might wonder is “How will I earn revenue through digital signage?”. The answer is simple, ADVERTISING. You basically sell advertising space on your digital signage screens to potential customers/advertising agencies/manufacturers for a premium price.

How will you sell this idea? People like to deal with facts and figures and the best way to sell advertising space is to let your advertisers know what they’ll get. Now, the only problem you will encounter is how to provide your clients or advertisers with “proof of play” reporting information. Currently, the only methods of tracking this information is to use either the built-in reporting tools (what time, how long and what content was played) that comes with the digital signage player/software or you can purchase additional equipment to capture information about your audience i.e face recognition (normally the cost of this unit is almost the same amount as the digital signage player so the overall solution may have just doubled in cost and there may be potential privacy concerns).

For most businesses, it will be difficult at first to get advertisers interested especially when there are several limitations on the methods to track whether an advertisement was played and who saw it. Simply providing a report that states that the player executed a command to play a file is not good enough. Even providing a report that someone (gender and potentially what age) saw the screen may also be not good enough.

If I was an advertiser I would want to know whether my advertisement was actually displayed on the screen (the screen may have been turned off or the cable between the player to the screen could have been disconnected – so why should I pay for advertisements that were not displayed) and then potentially determine whether the advertisement met its targeted audience.

At the moment a complete digital signage tracking solution is missing in the market. We hope that a company will come up with an ALL-IN-ONE solution to further engage more advertisers.

If there is a solution out there, let us know. You can be our eyes and ears on this one.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News