Digital Signage Blog Archives
Archive for Category: ‘Featured Post’
Weekend Fun: Blackberry Desktop Manager V5.0.1 – IP modem
What a fun weekend!! Just recently RIM released the desktop manager v5.0.1 which introduces the feature to EASILY setup the Blackberry as an IP modem (tethered modem) and I’ve been using this all weekend.
Now, all you have to do is click on several buttons and you’ll be connected to the Internet via the Blackberry Desktop Manager – you just have to make sure your blackberry is connected to your laptop or pc. Great stuff guys! Here’s some screenshots:
Blackberry desktop manager main window
Blackberry Desktop Manager with IP Modem window
Blackberry Desktop Manager IP Modem connected
Category: Digital Signage Techie, Digital Signage Weekend Fun, Featured Post
Screen Dilemma: Native vs Maximum resolution
This seems to be a common dilemma amongst a number of LCD/Plasma decisions in a lot of tender projects and client requirements. Do clients really know what they are asking for, and how important is screen resolution for digital signage rollouts?
Let’s clear a few things up first.
Native resolution is the fixed number of pixels on the screen. For example, if your screen has a native resolution of 1280×720 pixels, this means your screen is physically made up of 1280 pixels wide and 720 pixels high.
Maximum resolution is the highest resolution that the screen is capbable to display.
When an incoming signal to the screen does not match the native resolution, that signal must be converted (or scaled) to be displayed correctly on the screen. So lets use the same screen above, it has a native resolution of 1280×720. If an incoming signal is 1920×1080, the screen will scale this resolution down so that it can fit on the physical dimensions of 1280×720. Likewise if an incoming signal is 1024×768, then the screen will up-scale this resolution to fit 1280×720.
This process is possible because the screen has been programmed to recognise different input signals and to convert them as such. More often than not you will have a list of all the supported input signal resolution sizes, and the highest supported resolution is your Maximum resolution.
Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about how important is screen resolution in digital signage?
In all my digital signage years until now, I have not had to focus on optimising the quality of the display in regards to picture sharpness and contrast ratio. The general technology of the Plasma/LCD screen makes up for this. What comes out of the digital signage player is just right for the display quality. The general conversation would be on how to most effectively capture consumers attention with the type of content and how it is designed.
However recently in Australia, digital broadcasting of TV networks have become more prominent and consumers are now well aware of terms like HDTV. This presence of high definition television has entered many homes and now the retail store fronts want to show this off also. Because consumers are already aware of such technology, there is an expectation on store owners to provide this service to them.
The question comes back to client requirements. Do most clients have the proper knowledge to determine what screens they want based on what they know or what they have been told? Is it important to match the right resolution of what is coming from the digital receiver into the digital signage player, and out to the screen?
We’d like to hear your point of view on this topic. There is no right or wrong answer, as each requirements are different, but we would like to hear your thoughts.
Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Techie, Featured Post
Advertise Me Interviews Concerto Digital Signage
| advertise me: | Hi Brian, thanks for joining us for this interview. We’re quite excited to speak to someone such as yourself about Open Source applications for digital signage. |
| Brian: | Thanks for interviewing me! We built Concerto as students at one of America’s great tech universities because it addressed an unmet need that we saw on our campus, and we didn’t expect when we initiated the project to see it become a topic of interest for people all over the world. |
| Advertise Me: | Let’s start with the basics – could you please explain what Open Source is, and is it really free? |
| Brian: | Sure. Open source software is free for anyone to obtain and use, as well as modify – provided that they make their modifications open-source as well. |
| Advertise Me: | Thank you for clearing that up. So let’s talk about your Open Source application for Digital Signage called Concerto. How did you come up with that name and what is it exactly? |
| Brian: | First things first: Concerto is a free digital signage platform for sharing flyers, alerts, and other messages with other people by showing them on flat panel televisions and other types of screens. It’s a broadcast medium that makes it simple to make a flyer and get it out to many people quickly, but it also allows screens to show a custom mix of messages based on predefined preferences.
The name Concerto pertains to this key function. A musical concerto emphasizes one musical instrument amidst an entire orchestra, and with our digital signage product, users can emphasize one type of message amidst an entire orchestra of different types of advertising. For example, at we launched Concerto at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI for short). At RPI, the management school has a big screen with a special zone for graphical messages. With Concerto, they just specify the types of advertisements they want to highlight, and which types they wish to exclude. So messages about management lectures might be shuffled in more frequently than student entertainment flyers and sports notices. In this way, the management school can tailor their Concerto display for the audience they hope to attract without impacting how others on campus use Concerto. |
| Advertise Me: | Out of curiosity, how did the Concerto concept and idea start? |
| Brian: | We started Concerto with a purpose: to improve communication within our campus community. There were already ways to tell the RPI campus community about events and other happenings before Concerto: student groups, academic departments, or individuals could print out and tape up a lot of flyers, or even put their messages on the campus cable television system. It took a lot of time and money to print out and put up lots of paper signage. The cable television system was managed by a very small group of people who had many other responsibilities aside from approving messages for cable. More importantly, that system was designed with a bureaucratic, almost corporate mindset in mind, one meant to keep control of the network regulated to only the smallest group of elite users. So we designed Concerto from the ground up to be accessible to every computer user at our school. Now we have students, staff, and faculty working together to help maintain the network. It really gives people a reason to pay attention to Concerto – they become a part of campus communication, instead of just being forced to see it. |
| Advertise Me: | Why should someone use Concerto and what are some of the benefits? |
| Brian: | Members of any community where events and information are often overlooked should find Concerto’s unique design to be particularly attractive. We designed Concerto first for colleges and universities, but its benefits can extend to any community looking to spread and share messages about events and other activities.
Here are some core benefits of using Concerto:
|
| Advertise Me: | Since the application is free, are businesses permitted to resell this product to their clients? |
| Brian: | Under the terms of our license, the GNU Public License (v2), our software may be resold. But this distinction is key: no company can restrict the rights associated with a copy of Concerto by denying their users access to the source code. I’ll also add that if you make a modification to our source code, you must give back those changes to the larger community. Companies may provide for-pay support and consultation packages to get our software up and running for others, but the source code must always remain free to everyone.
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| Advertise Me: | Can Concerto be classified as a Software as a Service (SaaS)? |
| Brian: | I guess it could be considered SaaS, but that’s not how we think most people will use it. We have our Concerto server software running on a powerful machine at RPI that serves out the content for all of the client machines across our Troy, New York campus. This server could theoretically be located somewhere off-campus, in which case every client unit would receive content over the Web. But for most administrators who wish to launch a Concerto network at a school, in a town, or elsewhere, it probably makes the most sense to locate that server somewhere nearby. I should also mention that most users of Concerto are everyday people who just want to find and share messages of interest – since they just visit Concerto in a Web browser and never see its nuts and bolts, it looks like a service that could be hosted many miles away from them. |
| Advertise Me: | Could you please briefly explain what would be involved (hardware & software) in setting up a digital signage solution using Concerto? |
| Brian: | Concerto is designed from the ground up to work perfectly with inexpensive, commodity hardware that anyone can purchase from websites such as Newegg.com. There’s a central server, as I already described, which is simply a computer that stores content and distributes it to each Concerto screen. The first step to deploy Concerto is to download our software at http://www.concerto-signage.com and install it on the computer that will act as the content server.
Once that’s set up, you’ll need some other computers to drive the different displays on your fledgling Concerto network. The system requirements for these units are much lower – we’ve been successful with $500 small form factor computers that have 2 GB of RAM, Intel Celeron M CPU, Ethernet connection, CompactFlash card, and DVI connection that can then be adapted for HDMI output to flat panel televisions. These client units use the Concerto player software, which can be run as a live CD or installed directly to a storage device such as a hard drive or memory card. They must be able to connect to your network and receive power. For more information about how to deploy Concerto, please see the page at http://www.concerto-signage.com/view/deploy. |
| Advertise Me: | How long has it taken to develop the Concerto framework and application? |
| Brian: | We started to develop Concerto in October 2007, and launched it in March of 2008. We were all students at the time in our undergraduate studies at RPI. Since our RPI launch in March 2008, we’ve updated the core software over ten times, adding new features and addressing bugs in response to feedback from our more than 1,000 RPI-based users. |
| Advertise Me: | What makes Concerto so different from all the other Open Source applications in the market? |
| Brian: | Concerto first sets itself apart from many more traditional digital signage networks by being completely based on the World Wide Web. Older signage platforms were often based on coaxial cable lines. Concerto runs over standard Ethernet cable and wireless Internet, which makes it far more versatile for many places that now have more Internet jacks than coaxial hook-ups. More importantly, Concerto displays can show content that is completely specific to a location and/or audience. Finally, Concerto is designed from the ground up to encourage hundreds or potentially thousands of users to get involved in the process of sharing messages about events and other information. |
| Advertise Me: | What has been the most successful Concerto project thus far? |
| Brian: | Our first and most successful network is still at RPI, but we just released the source code under our public open source license in July, so we are also working with several groups from around America to launch Concerto in their own communities. While I can’t talk specifics yet, we’ve received inquiries from companies, libraries, and other universities. |
| Advertise Me: | Do you have any advice for people who are planning to start a business in the digital signage industry? |
| Brian: | I would suggest that the digital signage space is ready for some new ideas. Digital signage software has traditionally been proprietary and expensive. Concerto is a free alternative that provides, for the most part, the core digital signage package. In order for future companies to be successful in this space, I think they need to do more than continue to provide the same types of products and services that we can now give away for free. The bar needs to be raised, with offerings that provide an even greater value proposition than before. |
| Advertise Me: | Are there any plans to monetize Concerto? How are you guys going to make money, or is this a hidden secret? |
| Brian: | Concerto started as a volunteer project, and we decided early in the game that we would not attempt to monetize the software itself. We have no hidden agendas or secrets when it comes to that. While some of our team may consider becoming digital signage consultants in the future, we will never charge for the code. |
| Advertise Me: | This is our final question that we normally ask all of the people we interview. What do you see as the next “BIG THING” in digital signage? |
| Brian: | We have built a platform with Concerto to enable the core features and functionality of what I like to call a “twentieth century digital signage platform.” People can buy inexpensive commodity computer hardware, connect them to small or large monitors or television displays, and build a Web-based communication network in virtually any place where there’s easy access to an Internet connection. It’s a framework of functionality that nobody has to build anymore. Instead, they can focus on what they can add to Concerto to make digital signage more effective for new audiences. Nowadays, people are looking for new ways to interact with the information that’s being spread around the world. Social networking really put the focus back on the end user, and we feel that digital signage can be made more effective by providing more ways for users to interact with the advertising they see.
One of the ideas that we’re exploring with Concerto is how we can allow direct user interaction with digital signage. As the first and simplest way of enabling this kind of exchange, we’re adding pause and rewind buttons to our screens that will allow people to stop on specific messages and roll back to what they may have missed earlier. But what I think we’re really aiming to build is a full-blown kiosk mode that gives users new abilities to find out more about specific messages and other location-based information relevant to the Concerto display and its location. For example, let’s say that I’m looking at messages playing on a Concerto screen in the lobby of a hospital. When I move close to the screen, a web cam detects my presence and the display changes to show a smaller version of the same advertisements, as well as a building map and other hospital information. I think that a new and greater push for designing experiences that combine advertising with interaction can help us to create a new type of digital signage. |
| Advertise Me: | Brian, thanks for taking part in this interview and we hope to speak to you again in the near future. Good luck with the Concerto project and we wish you all the best. |
To read more interviews click here: http://www.digitalsignageblog.com/category/digital-signage-interview/
About Concerto:
Concerto is a free, Web-based broadcast medium for digital announcements that just works. Using Concerto, it’s easy to engage large communities of people with graphical and text-based flyers, alerts, and other messages. The open source project was initiated by undergraduate students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. The code can be downloaded for free at http://www.concerto-signage.com. The Concerto Project is open to developers from around the world and aims to provide a free platform for digital signage today and in the future.
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 Interview, Featured Post
Advertise Me interviews Blue Pony
| advertise me: | Hi Nathan, thanks for joining us for this interview. |
| Nathan: | No problem we appreciate the opportunity for conversation. |
| Advertise Me: | Could you please tell us a little bit about Blue Pony, and it’s history? |
| Nathan: | Blue Pony emerged in July of 2004 as a custom content creation company. We were formed by the owners Joel and Keersten Nichols. Joel and Keersten recognized the digital trend and the industries forming and embracing new technologies. We started creating content for the entertainment industry for concert tours. Our content has been used on tour with Sara McLachlan, Poison, the Eagles, in the Movies with Alvin and the Chimpmunks, and on TV with American Idol and America’s Got Talent. Along the way we found a natural fit creating great content for other industries. We felt especially at home with the growing digital signage Industries. We feel quality content is a need across all industries utilizing visual media. |
| Advertise Me: | I really like the Blue Pony Logo, how did the company come up with that name and the inspiration for the logo animation? |
| Nathan: | Thanks, we get a lot of compliments on it. Our sister company, Apollo Design Technology, makes lighting accessories like gobos, gobo rotators, gel, and more for the lighting entertainment industry. Our owners named Apollo after their beloved horse they received companionship from for 23 years. Unfortunately, Apollo passed away last spring. It seemed natural to build the new company sporting the name, Blue Pony. |
| Advertise Me: | In the digital signage industry, the term “Content is king” can sometimes be misinterpreted. What is your explanation for this statement? |
| Nathan: | I look at it this way. You can have the greatest technology to playback, display, schedule, and report with but at the end of the day the content playing back is what counts the most. There are certainly other variables that must align to add to success like location and placement, but effective well designed content is crucial. If the content is not effective the viewer won’t be engaged. If the viewer is not engaged by the content it is not an effective advertisement. Ineffective advertising is not likely to be renewed by the advertiser. |
| Advertise Me: | Thank you for that explanation. Now ,what type of content does Blue Pony supply and what is so different about the content Blue Pony supplies? |
| Nathan: | Great looking, well designed content is a great first step. What makes it kingly is matching it to the demographic (matching the style and material to the right group), dwell time requirements (what are the conditions of the environment? How much time do we have to communicate the message?), and environment (Making sure the content looks and feels at home and not odd and awkward). We create custom tailored content with an efficient and effective design process. Our design staff is experienced with Digital Signage ads and they have developed a thorough understanding on how to create effective signage content. We believe firmly that unique, custom content is important that is why even our “stock content” offering has a custom aspect. |
| Advertise Me: | What is the difference between stock and custom content? |
| Nathan: | In addition to a completely custom content option we have a content line in development called, Quick Designs. A Quick Design is a base design created by our design staff. The animation can be chosen as a spring board for design and we can plug in logos, images, and different text call-outs. We can even make color changes too. When you choose a Quick Design, one of our skilled designers will ensure your completed ad will look great. We feel it is better than a “template” that inevitably doesn’t quite work for whatever reason. Plus a template will likely look just like the one the other guy bought.
We also have a line called Dash Packs and regular stock background loops. Some of our Dash Packs are themed filler material for your network. Holiday greetings and celebrity birthdays are some that we have offered. http://digitalsignage.bluepony.com/content-options/dash-packs/ We never stop creating content, whenever we have time we work on new motion backgrounds to add to our online web library of stock content. Stock background loops are used across many industries. They are affordable and can be combined with other elements to create unique looks. http://www.bluepony.com/shop/ |
| Advertise Me: | How does the company source content material, e.g images, video footage etc? |
| Nathan: | Many times the material is supplied by the customer. They may provide a logo or product images. Because we have an in-house production company we are able to acquire our own stock video and photography. Furthermore, we have access to many royalty free image sources for use in our content. |
| Advertise Me: | In this digital age, content can be easily sourced from the net and some businesses and customers don’t realise that they are breaching copyright laws when using someone else’s content. What are your thoughts on this and does Blue Pony track where their content ends up? |
| Nathan: | We can’t stop it no matter how fancy we make the code. However, we are protective of our clients’ content and not every ad we produce makes it to our website. The entire process of ad development happens securely within our client preview portal. Everything is secure and access is only granted to the necessary individuals. In addition we offer our customers free mock content that we have developed. We learned quickly that most digital signage networks just need something to show their first clients by way of example until we build up a content portfolio that they can use for future sales. |
| Advertise Me: | Could you please briefly explain what steps and processes are involved when developing content. |
| Nathan: | I’d tell you but then I’d have to… No problem. We use all the usual software one would come to expect from a video, motion graphic design house. The differences are that we invest in the top of the line workstations that render video files pretty quick. We stay up to date with costly plug-ins, new fonts, and equip our production team with the best tools for content creation. That being said the process in brief goes like this. You contact us for content, we ask a few questions about your requirements or have you complete our content request form. The form gathers the details we need to determine a price to develop your content. We then generate an estimate and send it to you for approval. Upon approval of the estimate we schedule your content for production and email you a link to the project directory we create. This directory is where you can upload assets for production and it is also where our designer will place a preview for you to review your content. You would receive a link to review the content and would be able to provide feedback directly within the content timeline on the preview page. We implement any revisions you request and seek approval on the content. Upon approval we prepare the output file exactly to your specifications. You then can download your final content directly from the project directory. And repeat! |
| Advertise Me: | From past experience, how long should the content be displayed on the screens for? |
| Nathan: | It really depends. Site research might reveal the average frequency of visitors. If they see it once or twice that’s great. But if they have already processed the information and see it too many times they will tune it out and ultimately ignore the screen altogether. Two Weeks would be a sweet spot, in my opinion, but it does depend on the venue. |
| Advertise Me: | What makes Blue Pony so different from all the other content providers? |
| Nathan: | Experience, Customer Service, Quality, and Value. Customer Satisfaction is really important to us. When you engage Blue Pony you don’t just get a designer, you get an entire team of professionals who understand your business technology and goals. We realize without our customers success we will not succeed. |
| Advertise Me: | What has been the most successful and challenging content developed thus far? |
| Nathan: | Interesting. Hmm, well it is all challenging to determine how to best develop the next piece, but that’s the fun in it. Success? I hope the majority of our ads have had a shining moment but we rarely get to hear of there stardom. We seek feedback for our clients and get it from time to time. Bust most of the time we are like the auto repair shop and only hear from the customer when a new set of tires are needed. |
| Advertise Me: | Are you able to share some general pricing information with our audience? |
| Nathan: | Sure. Generally speaking all of our ad pricing is based on a rate of $135 per hour. That only is helpful to know if you have the other variable…How much time? On average a standard 20 second motion ad will cost $350. A premium ad of the same duration might average out at $500. What’s the difference between Standard and Premium? Purely time. If a premium budget is specified by the client we give our designer more development time which in turn translates to a more refined or sophisticated content piece. |
| Advertise Me: | This is our final question that we normally ask all of the people we interview. What do you see as the next “BIG THING” in digital signage? |
| Nathan: | Interactive signage and deeper integration to the personal technologies people carry, like cell phones, ipods, ect. |
| Advertise Me: | Nathan, thanks for taking part in this interview and we hope to speak to you again in the near future. |
To read more interviews click here: http://www.digitalsignageblog.com/category/digital-signage-interview/
About Blue Pony?
Blue Pony is a premier digital content provider for limitless applications who produces custom as well as stock content.
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 Interview, Featured Post
Advertise Me promo for digital signage by Blue Pony
Today we are officially releasing the advertise me promo for digital signage. This short clip was professionally designed and developed by Blue Pony and showcases our main digital signage website (http://www.advertiseme.com.au), the digital signage blog (http://www.digitalsignageblog.com) and the digital signage portal (http://www.digitalsignageportal.com). So here it is, (if you have the bandwidth watch it in HD):
Who is Blue Pony?
Blue Pony is a premier digital content provider for limitless applications who produces custom as well as stock content.
So what do you think about this video promotion?
Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.
Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Featured Post
“Video in Print” Player
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.
Loading ...Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Ideas, Featured Post
Advertise Me Interviews Ronni CEO of Minicom Digital Signage
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
Advertise Me interviews Steve from Symon
This week we were lucky enough to speak with Steve from Symon and here’ s the interview:
Symon Iphone
| advertise me: | Hi Steve, thanks for joining us for this interview – I know you’re a hard man to catch with your busy schedule. |
| Steve: | I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. |
| Advertise Me: | Firstly, how did you hear about our digitalsignageblog.com? |
| Steve: | We monitor a wide range of resources and thought leaders in the industry and Digitalsignageblog is one of those that we monitor. |
| Advertise Me: | Now, please tell us a little bit about how Symon started with digital signage, and what was the inspiration behind the business? |
| Steve: | Symon is visual communications solutions company. We have been creating systems for managing the delivery of digital content to electronic displays for almost 30 years. We started by providing real-time system statistics to LED boards in data centers, then evolved into providing real-time agent activity statistics to displays in contact centers, then evolved to providing employee information to displays in corporations (e.g. conference rooms, cafeterias), then expanded into hospitality, health care, education, etc. The inspiration behind the company was to build the systems that would deliver information to people in a way that is easy to understand and then intuitive to act upon. |
| Advertise Me: | What kind of solutions does your company provide? |
| Steve: | We provide the hardware, software, services and content for supporting an end-to-end visual communications deployment. We like to say that we power the visual communications eco-system, which we classify as many solution-types (e.g. digital signage, kiosks, wayfinders, video walls, etc) combined to work in harmony for the purpose of creating a clear and measurable value proposition for our clients. |
| Advertise Me: | What makes Symon‘s products and solutions so different from other companies? |
| Steve: | The thing that makes us different is that we design, develop and produce all components of a solution. All of the content management/delivery hardware and software are of Symon‘s creation and we take accountability for the customer’s entire ownership experience. This means our customers have one company to hold responsible for all products and services within a deployment. We design it, produce it, sell it, install it and support it. If anything breaks or doesn’t work, our customers have “one neck to chock.” |
| Advertise Me: | In one of our recent digitalsignageblog.com post, we talked about “Using your Iphone as a mobile digital signage player?”. We understand that Symon has recently released such a product. Tell us a bit about this product and why your company decided to release such a product. |
| Steve: | Our product is InView Mobile. InView Mobile is a media play application for smartphones that retrieves and plays interactive, multi-media content that is based upon the location of the user. The purpose of InView Mobile is to provide digital signage viewers with additional information in a fashion that cannot be obtained through a traditional digital signage viewing experience. In the InView Mobile-enhanced experience, Viewers are encouraged to download and launch the InView Mobile application. Once launched, InView Mobile queries a Symon-hosted content management system to acquire and deliver a mobile version of the show currently playing on the screen. InView Mobile goes one step further in that it presents an interactive, touchscreen version of the big screen’s non-interactive show. All of this is managed through one content management system. We chose to create this product because digital signage has one big problem: It can’t quantify what people do once they’ve looked at a screen. InView Mobile gives us a platform to begin addressing this.
 Symon InView |
| Advertise Me: | There are quite a number of people who believe that the Iphone should not be used a digital signage player, what do think about this? Are people not realising the true benefit of mobile marketing and mobile interactivity? |
| Steve: | Our customers sure think it’s a good idea and that’s all that matters to me. |
| Advertise Me: | Can you please share with us one of Symon‘s latest digital signage deployments/projects? |
| Steve: | Each month, Symon signs many new accounts. These new accounts represent marquee brands in corporate, hospitality, education, gaming, health care, etc. We have almost 8,000 customers representing 80% of the Fortune 100 and almost 70% of the Fortune 500. Look at almost any large company and there is a good chance that they will have a Symon system somewhere. |
| Advertise Me: | Do you have any advice for people who are planning to start a business in the digital signage industry? |
| Steve: | Don’t, unless they have a compelling angle that someone hasn’t thought of already (and please don’t let it be some new idea for an ad model). The competition is too great. The start ups can’t compete on the big deals and its tough to make a living off of a lot of little deals. In the five years I’ve been associated with this business, I’ve seen too many companies fail and there aren’t a whole lot of the survivors that are making money. The big guys will thrive, the little guys will have a tough go of it. I could write a book on this subject, but suffice it to say, you’ve got to have scale to win and a startup does not typically have enough resources to get scale. |
| Advertise Me: | This is our final question. What do you see as the next “BIG THING” in digital signage? |
| Steve: | Mobility. Interactivity. |
| Advertise Me: | Steve, thanks for taking part in this interview and we hope to speak to you again in the near future. |
To read more interviews click here: http://www.digitalsignageblog.com/category/digital-signage-interview/
About Symon
Symon Communications is a 29 year provider of in-venue visual communications solutions to over 7,500 customers globally, including 80% of the Fortune 100.
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 Interview, Featured Post
Digital Signage and Google Chrome OS
Today’s great news is that Google is planning to release it’s own OS called Google
Image source: www.google.com
Chrome OS and will compete against the almighty Microsoft Enterprise. We believe this is great news for the digital signage community because of the following reasons:
1. It’s Open Source and will be free. Moving towards an open source OS, will provide a significant savings to you and your clients.
2. According to Google, the Chrome O.S is fast and efficient. This is perfect for digital signage.
3. It’s lightweight – you will be able to install this on a netbook and run your digital signage application.
4. Its secure – like the Google Chrome browser, Google has designed the security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. This means spending less time patching!!!
5. Designed for the web – since most companies are now moving towards SaaS then this is a perfect match.
We look forward to testing various digital signage software on the Google Chrome and we can’t wait to get our hands dirty.
And a final note: Thanks google for making our life easier and cheaper for everyone!
Loading ...Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Featured Post
Digital Radio in Australia
Australia has just launched Digital Radio (launched on the 1st July 2009)!!!
Now if you live in a more advanced country than Australia you might be thinking to yourself, “We had Digital Radio several years ago!” but this shows that Australia is slowly catching up with the rest of the world and are embracing and deploying new technologies.
For those that don’t know much about digital radio, it’s basically like switching from your standard Analogue TV to Digital TV. Surely you must have seen the difference – better video and audio quality and better features.
Basically this is the same with Digital Radio, switching from your Analogue radio to digital means you receive crispier audio quality and additional features (i.e you can receive on screen information of what is actually being played, easily tune to your channels). Now like digital TV you needed to buy a set top box and much like with digital radio you will also need to purchase a digital radio receiver.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is one of the main broadcaster of the digital radio services and if you live in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth you will be able to tune in to the digital radio service. If you don’t have one of these digital radio receivers you can easily purchase one at your local ABC Shop (even go to the ABC Shop website) or go to a leading electronics store.
How do you see digital radio being integrated with digital signage?
Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.
Category: Digital Signage Blog Events, Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Featured Post
Interesting Digital Signage Discussion Video
There’s quite a lot of content out there on the Internet but this is the very first time I’ve actually stumbled across a Video Discussion on digital signage. I have learnt quite a lot just from watching these videos and I thought why not share it with our readers.
Now this discussion was organised/sponsored by Dynamax (thanks guys) and the companies involved included Dogobert, DigiCom, Stand Media, Imperative Group and Rocket Communications.
The main topic of the discussion was “Digital Out of Home is a multi channel multi touch-point communications medium. How should we design for the future to maximise viewer and user relevancy?”
The actual discussion was divided into several questions and there were:
PART 1 What do we mean by “multi touch-point” (devices/access points etc) in the context of Digital Out Of Home and what is it trying to achieve for viewers and/or users? (relevancy?)
PART 2 What does the existing Digital Out Of Home solution need to do more of to enhance the medium’s relationship with the end user? What – if anything – should we also stop doing?
PART 3 Does ‘multi touch-point’ mean ‘two-way’ communication? If so, how and where should this be designed into the medium to offer view & user value (however you choose to define that) when out of the home?
PART 4 How can multi touch-point digital media generate experiential value for users? Is this value easy to identify and reconcile commercially?
PART 5 What creative design elements are considered to be best of breed today and what trends are likely to emerge in the next 12 months?
PART 6 What physical design elements are considered to be best of breed today and what trends are likely to emerge in the next 12 months?
PART 7 What is the commercial challenge of delivering DOOH across multiple touch-points and how can this be best planned & managed?
Part 8 What challenges does the transactional nature of a multi touch-point model mean in terms of capturing, managing, storing and commercialising data?
PART 9 The collection of data means we can offer the viewer or the customer more value; what value does this offer?
PART 10 Which component parts of a multi touch-point proposition may offer the most commercial opportunities over the next 12 months and why?
PART 11 Does opening up the medium to users generating their own content necessarily make the medium more ‘relevant’?
Source: http://www.ddrmag.co.uk/links.php
Here’s the video of the first part of the discussion:
If you were present in the discussion, how would you have answer this question:
“What do we mean by “multi touch-point” (devices/access points etc) in the context of Digital Out Of Home and what is it trying to achieve for viewers and/or users? (relevancy?)”
Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.
Category: Digital Signage Blog Events, Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog Video, Featured Post
Digital Signage and Google Trends
Out of curiosity I decided to perform a Google trend search for the term Digital Signage – the exact term “Digital Signage” was performed to see what the trend has been over the years. From the image on the left, you can clearly see that the number of people searching for this term has increased over the years and I believe it will constantly continue to grow. But what I was more surprised from the information Google Trends provided was the regions that provided the highest searches. The majority of these regions where the Asian countries.
Here are the results:
Regions
1. Taiwan
2. Malaysia
3. South Korea
4. South Africa
5. Singapore
6. India
7. Canada
8. New Zealand
9. Australia
10. United States
From these results can one assume that there is a higher demand (based on search trends) for digital signage in Taiwan or Malaysia (I’m quite surprised to see malaysia being ranked second on the list) compared to countries like New Zealand, Australia and the United States?
Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.
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Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Polls, Featured Post
The truth uncovered: Playing music in your business environment is too expensive
I just finished reading an article from TechDirt and was shocked to find out how much the yearly licensing fees are for playing music in a nightclub or a restaurant. Here is a short extract from the article:
“It wants to increase licensing fees in a 120-seat restaurant to $19,344 a year — up from $125. Small cafes would be slugged with a 4729 per cent yearly increase from $124 to $5860.”
Source: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090615/0329305236.shtml
For those digital signage businesses who provide their clients with a digital signage solution that plays music in the background, have you considered what legal implications are involved and what the licensing requirements are? Even if your client has paid for the music clips or videos!
In Australia, retail stores that play music – whether from the radio, purchased CDs, computers, digital signage are required to pay a licensing fee otherwise it may be considered breaching copyright laws and eventually be fined thousands of dollars.
Now we all know that music can set the mood and atmosphere in your store, nightclub, restaurant or cafe but did you know that you may have to pay a licensing fee for playing music in your business environment or anywhere in public areas? Basically, if you play music in your store you need to have a PPCA public performance license to play protected sound recordings and an APRA public performance license to play musical and literary works. For more information about this visit https://transactions.business.gov.au/BLIS/musiclicence.aspx
All I can say is, just make sure that if you’re running a business or if you’re installing a digital signage solution with audio for one of your clients make sure you mention these licencing requirements to your client otherwise they (or possibly your business) may end up paying a hefty fine – so don’t risk it.
After thinking about this situation, do you believe a license is required for playing videos of unsigned artists playing original songs from Youtube in your store or business environment?
Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that because these artists are unsigned (i.e don’t have a label) the PPCA, or APRA won’t be paying them one cent so why should you pay for the license fee if all you’re playing is songs from these unsigned artists. For example, here’s one of my favourite Youtube R&B groups called LEGACI playing an original song. Keep it up boys.
Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Featured Post
Interesting screen technology for the future
I came across this video and thought I’d share this with the rest of the digital signage community. It’s about an upcoming product from Nanolumens that will make screen installations a lot easier and potentially more affordable (I question this statement as most new technologies are generally more expensive).
Have a look at the technology yourself and let me know what you think.
If you had one of these screens, where would you install it?
Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.
Category: Digital Signage Blog Products, Featured Post
Introducing digitalsignagearticles.com
Wouldn’t you like to read all your digital signage articles in one central location?
We’ve developed a new website called digitalsignagearticles.com (Digital Signage Articles). Check it out and if you’re interested in adding your digital signage articles (blogs, news…. or any articles relating to digital signage) then get in contact with us.
Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News, Featured Post
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