For this weekend fun, we want to share with you a comic on digital signage. I think this one has been floating around for a couple of days and it’s from the Blondie comic series by Dean Young & John Marshall. Thanks guys, we’re glad to see that the digital signage industry is getting noticed and acknowledged by the comic industry. Also, thanks to Ronnie for sharing this.

Blondie comic - digital signage

Source of the image: http://www.jsonline.com/comics/32402404.html?feature_id=Blondie&feature_date=2009-08-25

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Weekend Fun

American television network CBS has embedded a digital video player in a print ad in the Entertainment Weekly magazine issue for release next month.

The content of the video is a co-branded campaign between CBS and PepsiCo playing the network’s broadcast show line-up together with a Pepsi Max promotion. It operates by opening the page to activate the player coupled with audio to enhance the experience.

More information can be read at:
http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=1266084202
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/cbs-embeds-a-video-playing-ad-in-a-print-magazine/
http://itvt.com/story/5468/cbs-place-interactive-video-player-entertainment-weekly-print-advertising-spread

This brings a whole new gateway of executing marketing messages being delivered to consumers. Imagine watching a trailer to the next big blockbuster.

Whether or not this new concept will trigger a wave of digital mediums within print, I will surely keep my eyes open to see what the response will be like. The technology does come at a price and somebody has to pay for it, and the results are yet to be tested.

How will this be accepted amongst the wide audience?
Having that “wow” factor for the reader/viewer, or throwing those irritating stares at the person sitting next to you on the bus/train or at a library who is watching a video out of a magazine while you are trying to finish off the next few chapters of your favourite novel.

Feel free to continue this discussion at the digital signage portal forums, or post a comment on it here.

Thanks to Travis from Blue Pony for this lead.

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

This week we were approached by an individual who was interested in purchasing one of our domain names. We are not too sure what their intentions were but we thought that for this weekend fun post we would ask our readers how much do they think this domain name (www.digitalsignageblog.com) is worth. By the way… we are NOT selling this domain name.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Polls, Digital Signage Weekend Fun

We decided not to post anything this week as we have been informed that our hosting provider will be moving this website to a new server – it’s meant to have increased
performance and reliability.

So just to be on the safe side, we decided not to post anything until we know that we’ve been fully migrated across. Until then, we hope you’re having a wonderful day.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

It’s another weekend so you know what that means? It’s time for some weekend fun. For this weekend fun post, I thought I’d look around for a fun video to post. Generally, most of the content for digital signage is serious (depends on the environment) but I believe that sometimes it’s those funny ads that stand out and makes it go viral. So here’s a Youtube video clip of a McDonald’s funny advertisement:

What I found most interesting about this video from McDonalds is that it doesn’t matter which language the video is in, as long as it portrays the intended message to the audience then in my eyes it’s definitely a sure winner!

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog Video

This will be nice and short. If you want to follow our latest blog entries, forums, comments, and basically all our latest updates, then follow us on twitter.

You can follow us on twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/advertisemeAU

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News

It was a worthwhile trip to Melbourne for the 3 days Retail Expo. Apart from the general retail equipment and conventional display signage, in my opinion it was digital signage which took the light of the show.

At the centre of the show (I do mean right at the centre on the floor) showcased the Retail 2020 – Store of the future. Having said “store of the future” one would start to think automated customer interaction (without having to input anything into the screen), focused one-to-one marketing in personalising each customer’s experience – and that’s what it did. Picking up a pair of trousers and bringing them in front of a screen will trigger a video, Barcode scanners that control and manage content, just to name a few.

Traffic monitoring was also a feature that couldn’t be left out. People counting and activity flow were the main items on the list. However I would have liked to see eye tracking and facial expressions data, and possibly gender and age group contributing into the demographics.

Overall I am quite happy to see more strategies in improving customer experience – customer focus. Although one can argue to say it is what you do with the content that drives consumer decisions, which is true. What I was afraid of was only seeing back-end technologies in which we have all already seen and used over these many years. With automated customer interaction, one can add to the efficiency by customising (and market) the content to be more effective for the customer.

Did you visit the Melbourne Retail Expo 2009? Please share your experience with us.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Events

Many of us in the digital signage industry have in one way or another read their blog, heard or even used one of their products – I’m referring to no other than Minicom.

This week we had the opportunity to turn the tables around and interview Ronni, the CEO of the Minicom Digital Signage Division:

Ronni CEO of Minicom Digital Signage

advertise me:	Hi ronni, thanks for joining us for this interview – I know you’re a hard man to catch with your busy schedule.
Ronni:	Thank you for having me. Yes, it has been a very busy first half year.
Advertise Me:	I thought we’d start something different today and want to firstly ask you what’s your “elevator pitch” when meeting new or potential clients (our readers)?
Ronni:	Minicom Digital Signage is an established and recognized pioneer in the digital signage market, hence, we believe and are trusted that we know the market, the application and the needs. Our solutions control, extend and distribute multimedia and communication between the players and screens, making sure the message gets across… Our solutions reduce TCO and ease the DS deployments by providing the platform for in-site content distribution based on innovative technology.
Advertise Me:	Please tell us a little about how Minicom Digital Signage started with Digital Signage, and what was the inspiration behind the business?
Ronni:	Minicom Digital Signage has been a leading vendor for control and communication solutions in the computerized classrooms. Roughly ten years ago, we discovered that some of our integrators had been using the educational solutions to extend and distribute video signals in digital signage applications. This was during the days when you typed “digital signage” in Google, Google returned large format plotter printers. This is how we entered this market and swiftly recognized that we stepped into a major development, if not to say even advertising revolution. Since then we have been totally focused on the digital signage application, without looking left or right, resulting in a high degree of expertise. Other vendors come from the Pro-AV field, hence are more generalists and as a result of this they provide less focused solutions, answering the specific digital signage needs.
Advertise Me:	Over the years, Minicom Digital Signage has proven to be a strong provider and leader of Digital Signage products, so what makes Minicom Digital Signage so successful?
Ronni:	Once again: focus. Whoever turns to us, knows that we have accrued a decade of experience. We talk to all participants in the value chain on a daily level and maintain outstanding partnerships with most of the players in any layer of the market. We have recognized that the installers play an important role and consider the network owners as the effective endusers.
Advertise Me:	There is now a trend of increasing Digital Signage solutions using Software as a Service (SaaS). What is your opinion on this?
Ronni:	I believe it is part of the effort of the players in the market to find a suitable, competitive business model while maintaining an ongoing revenue stream. The digital signage market is project based, so for technology providers there is the challenge of captivating customers over a longer period of time. SaaS can be a win-win solution: at the one hand it dramatically reduces the capital expenditures for the network owners, at the other hand it provides the software vendors an ongoing, constant flow of income. I do believe that the model will further evolve and at the end of the day the industry will be more service driven.
Advertise Me:	Quite a number of companies, including Minicom Digital Signage, are now starting to integrate their solutions with environmentally friendly plans. Can you elaborate on how Minicom Digital Signage is playing their part for a greener world?
Ronni:	Our solutions reduce by their nature electricity consumption. With our architecture there is no need for a PC next to each screen. You may backrack all of the players in a single, secured room and dramatically reduce the number of PCs required since several displays can be fed from the same player. Furthermore, with our management platform, we allow all displays to be switched off when the shop closes. Besides, our technology is agnostic to the display, PC and SW vendors, hence, when upgrading a system, it doesn’t need to be swapped out.
Advertise Me:	What has been the most successful and popular Minicom Digital Signage product?
Ronni:	The DS Vision 3000 series has been a breakthrough in the market. Not only it carries full HD (1080p) signals as far as 600m and more, but it offers a built-in management platform, allowing to access and manage the display’s management port. DS Vision 3000
Advertise Me:	Do you have any advice for people who are planning to start a business in the digital signage industry?
Ronni:	There are lots of experienced and less experienced persons attracted by the positive vibrations coming from our market. Obviously, the lesser educated ones will not only burn themselves, but their customers will also suffer. It happens too often that a customer comes to us, asking us to it right after he had one-two failures before. So the bottom line for newcomers is to really understand the application, from content to measuring. There is no quick money in this market and competition is getting more intense. In any event, partnering with more experienced, established companies will always be an added value and accelerate the entry.
Advertise Me:	What is the Minicom Digital Signage Certified Reseller program and why should businesses partner with Minicom Digital Signage?
Ronni:	As mentioned, we invest a lot of attention and money into our long year old partnerships. Many of them have originated from the partner program. Networking is an important aspect in the market as we need each other in projects. Minicom Digital Signage, being a pioneer in the market, has a lot of legacy value to offer and with the partner program we provide access to these assets.
Advertise Me:	This is our final question. What do you see as the next “BIG THING” in digital signage?
Ronni:	I am not a prophet and we are driven by evolution, rather than revolution. So by nature it is hard to answer this question. However, we do observe an increasing engagement by more important players from the traditional advertising and OOH markets in the digital signage playground. This will ultimately change the rules of the game and lead to major consolidations.
Advertise Me:	Ronni, thanks for taking part in this interview and we hope to speak to you again in the near future.
Ronni:	Thank you very much. It has been my pleasure and honor.

To read more interviews click here: http://www.digitalsignageblog.com/category/digital-signage-interview/

About Minicom

World leader in “last mile” connectivity – Flawless transmission of audio, video and serial signals has enabled Minicom Digital Signage to become the leader in the production of advanced multimedia distribution and extension solutions for the digital signage marketplace. The digital signage industry has come to rely on Minicom‘s CAT5 and optical fiber-based hardware systems to deliver high resolution, high performance multimedia content. Today over 50% of all “last mile” deployments worldwide depend on Minicom technology.

About Advertise Me:

Advertise Me is a privately owned Australian company specialising in all aspects of digital signage solutions.

Our team of highly skilled professionals is able to introduce innovative ways for businesses to communicate with their intended audiences for a variety of purposes including informing, educating, entertaining and selling.

You can expect us to:

• offer the most affordable and cost effective solutions tailored to your specific business needs.
• provide you with concise and accurate information and will ensure that you understand and are comfortable with our proposals.
• strive to make our clients happy and successful.

We have partnered with a number of key reputable organisations and will continue to build further partnerships to deliver the most effective solutions for our customers.

Visit our website at www.advertiseme.com.au for more information.

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

Today, we received our new HD camcorder – the Sony HDR-XR520V. We can’t reveal too much what our plans are but all we can say is that you’ll probably see more High Definition Video on our blog and most of our other websites.

We haven’t had enough time to play with it yet but so far we are quite impressed with the quality and features of the unit. Some of the features are:

• has a massive 240GB internal hard drive
• has a Exmor R technology on a 1/2.88-inch CMOS sensor (I’m not sure exactly what this means but I’m guessing its good to have)
• has a built-in GPS mapping system
• a special Active Mode image stabilization enhancement feature
• at the top of the unit also has a Sony accessory shoe which can be used to connect a microphone to it
• + too many other features that it will take too long to list.

Here’s a picture we took of the Sony HD camcorder by using our Nikon D60 Digital SLR Camera:

Sony HDR-XR520V

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Blog Products

It’s another weekend and for this particular post we’re going to look at a fun and innovative digital signage solution in Taoyuan Airport. Basically, as you’re waling down the duty free alley in the Taoyuan airport Terminal 2, you will notice that an advertisement follows you. I’m not sure whether the ads as targeted specifically based on the gender or characteristics of the person walking past but do you find this too intrusive? Have a look at the video:

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Polls, Digital Signage Weekend Fun

Samsung LED 55" HDTV Image Source: www.samsung.com

Say goodbye to LCD and Plasmas screens and let’s make way for the latest LED screen technology. You may have already started noticing that prices for LCD screens and Plasma screens have been dropping in the past few years and one of the many reasons for this is the introduction of the next screen technology “LEDs”. Now, your typical LED billboards have been around for quite some time now but now screen manufactures are developing screens for the home and for commercial purposes.

So today, we thought we’d look at some of the features of the Samsung LED HDTV and in particular the UN55B8000 (55″ 1080p LED HDTV). Firstly, you’ll probably have already noticed by the description that the screen is 55 inches – yes it’s big but also it’s ultra slim (1.2″ deep). The other great features about this unit is that it is environmentally friendly – it uses 40% less power consumption than the traditional LCD screens.

Samsung LED HDTV Content Management Image Source: www.samsung.com

The other additional features is that it is Internet@TV capable, meaning it allows you to receive content via Yahoo!®, Flickr®, and other online TV Widgets on screen (would this be good enough for digital signage???). USB 2.0 Movie: Multi-Media Center makes it easy to watch movies, browse photos and listen to music on your TV. But wait, there’s more! Just say you feel like playing a game of chess or cooking instead of watching TV. Samsung Series 8 LED TV’s Content Library Flash feature lets you do just that. Enjoy hours of built-in entertainment features, then personalize it by adding content that’s available online. And downloading is easy. There’s so much you can do with te Series 8 LED TVs.

In terms of price… it’s not so bad, it’s actually only US$3,999.99 (who uses 1 cents these days?). Anyways, if you’re intending to capture your audience using the best picture quality – bright and clear images then look no further… LED is the way to go.

We would love to review this product when it hits Australia, so if someone from Samsung wants us to review the product send us an email to review@advertiseme.com.au

With the features of the Samsung LED UN55B8000 HDTV, what are your thoughts about using this as a digital signage player?

Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Blog Products

For those of you that didn’t know, we have provided you the facility to use the Google translator to translate these blog posts in different languages. At the moment, you can translate these posts in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Chinese Traditional. So no matter what language you speak, click on the flag at the top right hand column and Google will translate the post for you.

Happy reading… in whatever language you read.

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Here’s some of the translations (don’t blame us if it doesn’t make sense):

German

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info

We all knew this was going to happen and it eventually did. Coca-cola has released digital signage vending machines which are interactive. Here’s a video to show you what we mean:

And here’s a video of someone actually using the vending machine… I like it how he had to press the right arrow several times before it scrolled to the right and it also has the Pay Pass payment option (I haven’t really seen this been used in Australia):

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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog Products, Digital Signage Blog Video

It’s the weekend and thought I’d share an exciting and fun video clip – you’ll be also surprised as well.

We previously talked about how the iPhone can be used as a digital signage player (there’s already a few companies out there who have created an application on the iPhone) but now how would you like to be served by a humanoid robot with an iPhone attached to it’s head? Watch the funky video and we’ll discuss later:

In the examples in the video, the humanoid robot with the iPhone attached as it’s head, can be used to:

• wake you up – morning!!! maybe even give you a hug or a slap
• entertain – it’s a dance machine…shake it’s robo booty
• teach it new tricks and moves – next thing you know it will start imitating your moves
• and if you’re nice to it… it might even make you a coffee (just kidding – ummmm may be it is possible)

BUT more importantly it can interact with YOU – think about it from a sales and marketing perspective and you’ll start realising that this robot can be used to attract more customers into your store and even possibly serve it’s customers (stick your own photo image as it’s head ). The screen itself can be used even to promote sales, products and specials whilst it’s dancing around entertaining it’s customers (yes it’s  digital signage after all). And yes…. I’ve said it before… the possibilities seem to be endless with the future of mobile phones as digital signage players.

So that’s our weekend fun for this week and we all hope you’re having a great weekend.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog Products, Digital Signage Blog Video, Digital Signage Ideas, Digital Signage Weekend Fun

Wirespring is currently running an interesting survey called: How much should digital signage cost and I’ve just completed it. The survey basically looks at how much different digital signage hardware and services cost – now I assumed that the survey was in US$ and not local AU$.

Bill Gerba explains in his post that participating in this survey is worthwhile because:

1.  demand-driven pricing estimate is a great way to check the accuracy of all of the supply-driven pricing estimates out there.

2. it’s easier than voting with your wallet: by choosing the fair-value price for each item, you get to (anonymously) tell everybody who receives the survey data what’s on your mind.

So let’s get to it, complete the survey here. I’m very interested to see what the results are but we’ll have to wait until the end of August when the survey ends.

How much should digital signage cost?

Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News