There are a few questions you will need to consider and I’ve listed some below:

1. Does the screen support Portrait? If your using a commercial grade screen then most likely the answer is “Yes” but if you have purchased a residential screen then the answer would be “No”. That is one of the benefits of using a Commercial grade screen.

2. Which way do you rotate the screen? Generally, the logo (Samsung. Panasonic) would be on the left hand side when you rotate the screen vertically.

3. Do I need to change brackets? Most likely you will need to change the bracket. The reason for this is that the bracket that is drilled onto the wall is too long and it will stick out on both sides of the screens when the screen is mounted vertically.

4. Does the content on the screen need to change? Yes, the first thing you need to do is rotate the screen on the Operating System. To do this follow these steps if you’re using Windows 7:

Right click the desktop, select screen properties and change landscape to portrait.

The screen will then be rotated. If you haven’t positioned your screen in portrait then it may feel a bit weird moving the mouse as it will move in the opposite direction.

So now that you’ve changed the Operating System screen orientation, you need to modify your content. You cannot use the existing content because the dimensions are incorrect. So a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution needs to be changed to 1080×1920. The elements in this canvas also needs to be changed.

Overall, there is a fair bit of work that needs to be done to change a screen from landscape to portrait.

We've been Samsung fans for a long time, we have a Samsung Printer, several commercial grade screens, a Samsung galaxy phone and the next device that will be on our list is probably the latest Samsung Smart TV. Why? Because Samsung is one of the leaders and most innovative companies in the TV industry. Want size, that's not a problem Samsung is able to offer the 85 inch Samsung S9.

The new line of the 2013 Smart TV's has some really cool features. All the Samsung Smart TV's gives you the ability to connect to the Internet, check your emails, view your photos, play videos and music and in addition check all your social applications like facebook and twitter. Obviously you need an Internet connection and the beauty about the Samsung screens is that they come with a Wireless interface card. So less wires and the freedom to watch what you like and when you want – so you are in control.

The new S-Recommendation feature which you can ask the TV to recommend some of your favourite types of shows based on your viewing preferences. Like singing competitions then the Samsung screen will recommend shows like The Voice or Idol. Are you a fan of a particular actor or actress, then ask it to find out what's on starring that person.

What's interesting is that Samsung Australia was one of the six countries to be selecteed to build it's own natural language S-Recommendation feature due to the sophisticated nature of the Australian market. This new feature is designed to also understand and respond to commands in the Australian Dictionary (other languages as well) so it's perfect for me. In addition, the Voice Interaction technology can understand a question you asked and then speak back to the viewer with an Aussie accent. 

Be amazed and watch the 2013 Samsung Smart TV advertisement

Mobile and Signage: Reconciling Two Non-Competing and Non-Congruent Technologies

I believe it was the French poet Baudelaire who is quoted as having said, “True genius is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously without losing your mind.” It has also been said that bringing two seemingly unrelated products together in a unique and value-adding way spurs innovation, increases efficiencies and creates growth. When it comes to combining mobile and signage, I’m the devil’s advocate.

Integration for integration’s sake is foolish. Making a product compatible just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Let’s discuss a few reasons why integrating technologies for integration’s sake is a bad idea.

Non-Competing and Non-Congruent

Perhaps it’s the attempt and desire of digital signage developers to get into the mobile app development space. Or maybe diving into a non-congruent market is management’s way of differentiating for niche dominance. Or perhaps it’s because the software product we offer is already so good that developers need something productive to do to occupy their time.

Let’s hope the reasons stem from the latter and not the former. The fact is that mobile apps are a Red Ocean of competition and most niches, including mobile and digital signage integration, are altogether too small to turn a significant profit to woo investors.

Form Factor Failure

Let it be clear, we’re not speaking of tablets, phablets or anything larger than a traditional Android or Apple mobile phone. In fact, there are a great deal of superb examples where cost-effective tablet-based displays have replaced large form-factor digital signage—and successfully so. The form-factor failure arises when signage operators try to steal space from the “pocket billboard” by directly competing with mobile app developers.

The truth is that the mobile form-factor fails as a digital out-of-home marketing tool. Yes, the mobile phone probably spends a great deal of time out-of-home, but the segmentation, targeting and positioning needs of mobile are as different from digital signage as newspaper ads from broadcast media.

What’s good for the signage goose is doesn’t work for the expansively larger mobile gander.

Usability & Applicability: Know Your Audience

Standard signage server-side portals are generally not meant for middle-aged mothers of two, or any other audience that makes up the majority of smartphone users. Does making your digital signage software solution compatible with the latest iPhone give the solution a significant value-add over the competition? Maybe, but the vast majority of smartphone users won’t need or want to push a scheduled signage presentation to their mobile.

SMS, MMS, Bluetooth, QR codes and the rest of mobile phone products that work to elicit a response for screen interaction certainly have their place, but the scale of audience needed to elicit a positive ROI would never work for the 99% of digital sign investors.

Tailoring your product to the needs and wants of the end-user will mitigate both investor and customer fallout issues. Reverse engineering some nifty or bleeding edge application with no demand and ultimately no legs will waste valuable time and resources.

Consolidating and Integrating

Now that the devil’s advocate rant is concluded, it is helpful to discuss at least a few ways in which smartphones and signage can coexist peacefully.

Perhaps the most appropriate area for integration of smartphones and digital signage is in application development for remote signage control. This could include server access and full server control for scheduling content and providing “screen preview” on mobile devices. In the case of emergencies, it could allow administrators to perform push Amber Alerts to any sized network in real-time. Or, the local entrepreneur could access his account and make needed changes to tomorrow’s restaurant menu on the fly.

Incompatibilities between signage and mobile exist, but the blurred lines between both are becoming harder to demarcate. Let’s just make sure we maintain a focus on value-adding activities while avoiding signage superfluities.

Nate Nead is the President of Deploid digital signage, a Seattle, WA digital signage technology company. He formerly worked as a National Accounts Manager for digital signage with Hughes, Inc. 

Advertise Me, an Australian Digital Advertising Solutions company focusing on Digital Signage has launched a newly redesigned company website. The new website design allows for much more interaction, including the integration of Social Media and incorporates their latest technologies. The redesign of the website offers easy home-page navigation of all the services Advertise Me provides (Digital Signage Solutions, SMS and Squeak –  a custom built Digital Advertising Platform and much more).

The new website is a key step to fully present the company’s achievements and showcases some of their client portfolios. More importantly the website is professional, effective and is an interactive tool to connect with their customers (both existing and prospective). If you have some time visit their website here: Advertise Me

About Advertise Me

Advertise Me is friendly team of professionals who are passionate about digital technology and innovation. We spend a lot of time educating businesses on the opportunities and possibilities of the latest and greatest in digital technology including Digital Signage, Online Advertising, Social Media, Smartphones and Tablets. Advertise Me is not afraid to explore new possibilities or even building the most intricate and out there solutions.

Then there’s the All-Weather Surface glass (Display enabling, damage resistant, touch sensitive) that just makes my jaw drop.

When I watched the second video, I felt like going back to school because it seems so fun!!!

Touchscreen glass is an exciting area and I hope we can see digital signage implementations in the near future.

(This image or media was taken or created byMatt H. Wade
(User:UpstateNYer).
To see his entire portfolio,click here.)

Digital signage offers extraordinary visibility for advertising messages, internal promotions and specialty marketing, just like the flagship digital billboards in Times Square in Manhattan. Retailers, brand marketers and service providers can tailor their messages to target passersby during business hours, evening entertainment excursions or family shopping trips on weekends, creating custom, media-rich messages for the demographic makeup of people likely to see the signs.

Create a Rich Experience for Customers

Photo caption: Deliver advertising messages directly to the customer.
(Courtesyof 3D Signs: http://www.dddsigns.com/)

Electronic signs deliver more than simple advertising messages because they can encourage customer interaction, entertain and inform people and broadcast sports and financial information. People make about 75 percent of their buying decisions at the points of purchase, according to the Point of Purchase Advertising International organization.

• Signage compels attention and reaches potential customers when they are most responsive.
• Full motion displays, color graphics, interactive touch screens and real-time content add senses of urgency and timeliness to promotional messages.
• Owners and store managers can use changeable signs to promote high-margin items, offer specials and limited-time offers and upsell popular products by recommending appropriate accessories.
• Digital displays could include community-service messages, safety tips, and direct feeds for news, weather and entertainment.

Digital signage entertains people who are waiting for medical procedures, automotive services and seating in restaurants. Restaurants can feature daily specials, menu-item nutritional information and upcoming menu changes on digital displays.

Costs and Content Considerations

Content describes a variety of pictures, videos, live feeds, animations, interactive applications and text that these electronic signs display. Personal computers and servers usually control the technology so that business owners can create custom displays without making large capital expenditures for controlling equipment.

Creating strong content makes advertising messages more powerful, and tailoring messages to specific audiences generates an enormous promotional impact. Businesses can save on long-term advertising and printing costs because the technology delivers hundreds of custom messages without additional costs. These business signs use LED, LCD, projection and plasma displays, so entrepreneurs have versatile options for quality and affordability.

Purposes of digital signs vary greatly, and they offer astonishing benefits for branding products, training workers and educating and influencing customers.

1 Signs offer public information, directions and internal information.
2 Digital directions can persuade customers to visit different store departments that they might otherwise overlook.
3 Applications and live feeds help to entertain customers while they wait, improving their experience during store visits.
4 Interactive screens create decorative atmospheres and enhance the interior environment.

(Image Courtesy of :GroovyGreen)

Static billboards, out-of-date advertising and inappropriate messages limit the returns on advertising investments, but digital signage allows business owners to engage their customers, tailor their messages and abandon promotions that fizzle. The ease of making changes, attention-grabbing graphics and high-definition video make these signs worth the costs of initial investments for all types of businesses and organizations.

About the Author:

Eric Burk has over 10 years experience in the sign industry. He is involved in the planning, development and implementation of signs for various companies. Writing blogs gives him the opportunity to do both things he is passionate about, writing and signage.  You can get in touch with him at Wery1972@gmail.com.

The window also calculates how much money would be saved and how many tons of CO2 emissions we can reduce annually if each transformed car were all-electric.

See the window in person at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue, across from Bryant Park in NYC, now through midnight, Saturday, November 17th.

BMW i vehicles will be on the road in late 2013.

Most internal industry prognosticators are always bullish. The digital signage market is no exception. In fact, since 2005, we’ve not seen the proverbial market marching drums slow one iota. Simply put, we’re very good at touting our own horns and talking about the future, but the realist in me (and perhaps annoying pessimist) makes me take a different look at where the industry has been, where it is going and what 2013 means for the maturation of the industry at large.

In my own mind, we’re still on the cutting edge—that high-centered median where product demand meets stark reality. Here are a few reasons digital signage has disappointed investors over the past decade.

1. Systemic Risk. This issue is number one. “If the market hadn’t ___.”  Fill in the blank. Soft markets, tepid investors and corporate cash-hoarding have kept companies from shelling out money for products whose ROI is subjective at best and negative for most.
2. 4 million screens. The 2012 numbers are out. The industry now sits at somewhere around the 4 million display mark. Sure, 2013 promises another million added which works out to some great marginal growth, but it’s nowhere near previous predictions and nowhere near the requisite volume to sustain every industry software, hardware and integration vendor.
3. Unclear Vision. Sure digital signage is morphing. In five years, it will be represented by a complete integration of tablet, mobile, signage and PC, but a lack of clarity on returns of particular modes and methods has proven a turn-off for would-be investors. I’ve found that talking about it too much brings in questions from fringe lunatics, but they’re time-consuming black holes with shallow pockets.
4. Unproven Bleeding Edge. Stepping further out onto the ice, industry gear heads like to talk about retail signage with gesture control and large format touch screens. It’s not viable except perhaps for those wishing to make a statement. Unfortunately, viable returns trump statement setting.
5. Advertising Has Been Stymied. Ad-funded and ad-based models have fizzled. See #1.

Return Free Risk

There is no longer such a phrase as risk-free return. We’re at the inversion point where investors everywhere chase returns with the hope that systemic risk does rear its ugly head before capital starts coming back. This is especially true of cutting-edge products.  Negative ROI? What negative ROI?

Tell me how one can justify pegging a positive ROI with a two year turn-around on a display, player software and content that racks up a bill of a few G’s? There is inherently more risk associated with installing flashy digital displays (e.g. hardware depreciation, potential significant price drops etc.) than even investing in corporate bonds (even if the bubble there decides to burst very soon).

No, sadly digital signage is simply another return free risk—yet another byproduct of the fringe lunatics (see #4) above.

Industry Blinders and Self-Deportation

If you’ve been in the industry long enough, you’ve seen sales reps, players, products come and go. I’m personally seen a great deal of self-filtration of career signage evangelists who felt compelled to leave an industry they adored (see #2 above). The supply/demand economics simply don’t add up.

Some need to follow Kenny Rodgers’ advice by”[knowing] when to walk away and when to run.” Such self-deportation often requires harsh realities like layoffs or stock floundering, but having eyes wide open is helpful. I’m not a pessimist, but it’s easy to be a bit more bearish when you invest alone and personally remain the single throat to choke.

The sad truth: most of the online content created about this industry comes from within the industry or from some paid study performed about the industry. If you want to get back into the thick of it, the competition is fierce, the margins are less-than-lean and the bleeding edge is hard to sell. In short, the hemorrhaging occurs on the cutting edge. Sadly, as a still adolescent industry, the wounds are still fresh.

About the author:

Nate Nead is the owner of Deploid.com, a digital signage marketing agency based in Seattle, WA USA.

1. Cost – Essentially, the cost for a digital signage system could be akin to purchasing a computer and using a 42-inch LCD screen to run it. For a basic system, the entire setup could cost around $5,000 just in hardware. This is very dependent on how large the screen is and whether you need it mounted outside or not. There is a great deal of cost for the installation of one of these units between software and continuous digital playback devices.

For a small business, the cost could be far more than what is allowed in the budget. The digital signage does not guarantee your business will improve, although there is a good chance it will. Spending that kind of money for a small business may not be realistic. Once the small business is established and is able to sustain itself without personal investments, then extravagance may be looked at closer.

2. Efficiency – Many small businesses get suckered in by salesman to buy into an advertising method that has proven to show results. Unfortunately, many of these business that buy into these “proven” methods wind up losing quite a bit of money that could have been better spent in other developments. When you are looking at a marketing device of any kind, read the fine print.

There is no such thing as an advertisement that will guarantee business. Those who say there is, are only trying to sell you something that may or may not work. All the advertisement does is share with the potential customer information about the business and/or products. It can’t force people to buy into the business services.

3. Results – Although there are statistics that show digital marketing can provide a good return-on-investment, it’s still no guarantee that it will work. For a small business that needs to utilize its money wisely or perish, this would be the same as going all-in and hoping your hand is better than your opponent in Texas Holdem’. Is it really worth the gamble?

If the business can afford the extra thousands of dollars it will cost to set up digital signage, then it should. Digital signage has provided a great deal of high ROI for those who use them. It just may not be practical for a small business with less than five employees. At least, not yet.

Regardless of your marketing techniques, digital signage can make a great impact in how consumers view your business. It will be up to each individual company to decide for itself if this method will be cost effective for the organization. Keep in mind that in the 21st century, a great deal of marketing is through digital methods and you don’t want to seem archaic to your potential customers.

About the Author:

Ken Myers is an expert advisor on in-home care & related family safety issues to many websites and groups. He is a regular contributor to www.gonannies.com. You can get in touch with him at kmyers.ceo@gmail.com.