2011 has been great year for digital signage but in the media all we hear about is the big digital signage manufacturers/developers launching new products and  the large digital signage network owners growing their networks.

We hardly hear about the smaller companies launching their unique and innovative digital signage solutions and this year we want to recognise the quiet achievers. So if you’re a small business, let us know about your digital signage project so we can share this with the rest of the digital signage industry.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

advertise me is your one stop shop for all your digital signage needs and solutions. Whether you need a digital menu board or an enterprise digital signage system, Advertise Me will be able to deliver a solution that will meets your budget and needs.
Advertise Me is a leading digital signage solutions provider and are able to supply digital signage displays from leading manufacturers, lcd/plasma/led screens, video walls, touch screens, digital signage players, digital signage software, digital signage servers, digital signage interactivity, digital signage hardware and accessories such as video extenders.
Advertise Me has completed digital signage installations at the major capital cities (Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne) and can pretty much cover all the states in Australia.
So for your next digital signage solution, contact Advertise Me on 1300 880 005 or contact info@advertiseme.com.au or click here to request a quote.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

advertise me has showcased their digital signage solutions at the Digital Signage World 2011. The event was held over two days (9th & 10th June 2011) at Hall 1 at Darling Harbour Exhibition Center Sydney Australia. The Digital Signage World 2011 is the second digital signage event that has been held in Australia and is the only dedicated tradeshow and conference for the digital signage industry and included seminars from key speakers and exhibitors.

Advertise Me was one of the many exhibitors at the event which included large companies such as Sharp, Fujitsu and Netcomm. During this exhibition, Advertise Me stood out from their competitors by demonstrating the use of Social Networking tools such as Twitter and Foursquare to communicate real time information on the screen. The setup of their stand was also unique which incorporated the use of a video wall(2×2 47″ FULL High Definition LCD Panasonic screens) to demonstate different applications for digital signage. Here’s the setup:

The digital signage software that was used for delivering and distributing the content to the screens was PADS Professional developed  by a Netherlands based company called Net Display Systems. Net Display Systems has thousands of installations in multiple market sectors from transportation, corporate and government to hospitality and retail.

The PADS Professional software was installed on the Shuttle XS35 – one of the smallest and powerful PC we’ve seen on the market. The unit has an atom processor with an NVIDIA ION graphics chip set and is able to play Full HD videos without any issues. In actual fact,  we played a number of Full HD Videos at the same time and didn’t notice any lag. For convenience, the unit can be mounted on the back of a screen with a Shuttle VESA mounting kit.

The top left hand screen demonstrated the use of Twitter, Foursquare, News and Weather feeds, and the ability to show real time video (USB Camera) as an input source.

The top right hand screen demonstrated the use of Advertise Me’s custom built SMS solution. This digital signage solution enabled visitors to select a music video clip from a list by texting a code to a mobile number. According to the company, this application can be used with any digital signage software that can be connected to the Internet and it’s use can be applied in any industry. Advertise Me also used this solution to distribute the PADS demo key via SMS.

The bottom left hand screen played marketing videos and was also used to demonstrate the PADS software. This allowed Advertise Me to answer and show the user how easy the system is to use.

The bottom right hand screen played an image slideshow demonstrating the use of digital signage in different industries such as hospitality, education, retail and the corporate sector.

Facial recognition, hand and SMS interactivity were some of the innovative technologies being showcase at the exhibition and it is anticipated that businesses will soon adapt to these new technologies in Australia.

Advertise Me would like to thank their sponsors for their help and assistance:

• Net Display Systems
• Shuttle/Altech
• Panasonic
• Visual Sounds
• Squeak.com.au

Here’s a few more photos of the expo:

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

Dell in North America is looking to fill an Inside Sales Account Management position at their North America. The Scope of the position is as follows: Individual contributors responsible for selling Dell’s printer, projector and digital signage solutions, to new and existing customers in Federal. I didn’t realise that Dell had their own digital signag solution but I’m guessing they must be refeering to their display screens or all in one PCs.

Based on the qualifications required, the position doesn’t look like it’s that difficult to get if you have the right skills:

• Minimum 2 years relationship sales and Federal experience

• ISR-AE class completion or field experience equivalent

• Strong organizational/time management skills

• Highly energetic

• Support of your manager and RSM

If you’re looking at applying for this job here’s the link: https://dell.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?job=11000UD9&src=JB-10007

Good luck to those that are applying.

Category: Digital Signage Jobs

Our showroom screens

Last week I had a brief discussion with one of my colleagues about the confusion between Landscape vs Portrait content and the extra effort required to maintain content on these two types of layouts. In a digital signage network with screens in both landscape and portrait orientations, it can be quite confusing for the content creator who maintains a large network of screens. On a landscape screen you create landscape designs and for portrait screens you create portrait designs. Well, I mentioned to him that most administrators of the digital signage network may not be able to easily distinguish the difference especially if the network group of a digital signage screens are a mix and do the clients really understand the extra effort (may even cost) required.

There are some digital signage solutions that are just able to automatically rotate and crop the content so that it fits on the screen no matter if it’s landscape or portrait but in the case where your digital signage system doesn’t have this feature, what do you do? To solve this issue you need to have two sets of designs or templates – one in landscape and then one in portrait.Then, when scheduling the content the administrator needs to work out which screens will use the landscape content and which ones will use the portrait content. If you have more than 20 screens with a mix of landscape and portrait screen this can be a very tedious task. I guess if you have setup your screens to be within a group e.g Landscape screens, Portrait screens then this task may be easier but at the end of the day does your network require both screen orientations? If not, I would say stick with one type of screen orientation to minimise administration and design efforts.

As digital signage solution providers we provide consultancy services and help them understand the benefits and pitfalls of maintaining a digital signage solution.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog Products

Digital menu boards are becoming the greatest marketing tool for Restaurants and food outlets. Why? Because food can be more engaging and enticing if there’s motion and if information can be updated based on time schedules.

One of the main advantages of using digital signage is the fact that if you own multiple stores at different locations, you can centrally manage all of these from the head office.

Traditionally, one of the most time consuming component of a menu board is changing the prices and images of the food items. With a digital menu board this task has become so much easier. For some digital signage solutions, all you need to do is update the prices in an image editing tool or edit a text file.

For those of you who are interested in a digital menu board visit advertise me – they are offering a packaged digital menu board solution which includes the following (click here to view their offerings and pricing):

• 40″ Commercial Grade LCD FHD display screen
• (Other screen sizes also available)
• Built-in Digital Signage player
• Creation and design of your menu board (preview some of our designs)
• 1 Year Commercial Warranty
• Operations/Training Manual
• Installation Guide
• Delivery

So take the step now and GO DIGITAL and contact Advertise Me to discuss your digital menu board solution.

Category: Digital Signage Blog News

I was in Canberra Australia on the weekend and noticed a very clever and innovative kiosk/digital signage solution that I’ve never seen before. Basically, it at a 24 hour dry cleaners service. It’s an automated machine with a small touch screen that allows you to drop off your dry cleaning and pick them up at a later time. The whole point of having this is for convenience – how many of us don’t have the time to drop off our dry cleaning during business hours? There two compartments, one to drop of your clothes and the other to pick up the clothes. My understanding is that the clothes are dry cleaned during the day and are hanged on an automated hanger so all you need to do is enter your receipt number and it will automatically position your clothes to the pickup shaft.

dry cleaners kiosk digital signage

dry cleaners kiosk digital signage 1

I really haven’t seen it in action so the above is just a guess based on what I saw. Has anyone else seen any innovative kiosk or digital signage solutions?

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info

In the past couple of weeks we’ve been busy testing different digital signage systems and we were also involved in a digital signage installation. We have a test bench with a 37″ LCD screen which we primarily use to build and test our digital signage solutions. We were wondering whether other people’s test benches were as messy as ours.

Feel free to send us pictures of your test bench to info@digitalsignageblog.com and we’ll share it with the rest of the world.

Category: Digital Signage Klips

This weekend I decided to play around with the google search features and stumbled across the “Wonder Wheel”. So what I did was I typed the search term “digital signage” in the google search bar. Google displayed the most relevant websites related to this search term, in Australia our advertise me and Digital Signage portal are on the 1st page and we’re pretty happy about this result.

continue reading »

Category: Digital Signage Weekend Fun

If your digital signage solution is not implemented correctly it may work against you. Let me explain…

On the weekend whilst walking past a busy street I spotted across the road a real estate company with several LCD screens located at their front window. This is what I saw: (excuse the quality of the pictures but it was late at night and I was using my blackberry):

Digital Signage Screen not working

Digital Signage Faulty Screen

Digital Signage Faulty Screen

Now, in Australia quite a number of real estate agencies have moved away from using the traditional static posters for displaying their property listing and have implemented some form of a digital signage solution (visual display screens or touchscreen technology).

What I was most surprised about this particular installation and setup was that 1/3 of their screens was either turned off or had a fault with the LCD unit. Does this mean that 1/3 of the properties were not displayed? How would the property owner feel knowing that they are potentially losing interested buyers.

So what I have learnt from this situation is the following:

1. If there’s a hardware fault fix it immediately

2. Always have a backup plan – don’t be afraid to revert back to the old method of using traditional posters when required

3. Use a mixture of digital signage solutions and traditional posters

4. It looks unprofessional and embarrassing for both the digital signage solution provider and owner if the solution fails

5. You will definately lose customers if the problem is not rectified in a timely manner

Category: Digital Signage Blog Info

This month, we completed a digital signage install at newsXpress. Here’s a couple of images of the digital signage solution using the latest Cayin product:

A case study will be posted shortly.

If you have any images of digital signage solutions, feel free to post them in the digital signage portal (registration is required). The digital signage portal allows your business to showcase your digital signage case studies, photos, advertisement templates and examples all in one location.

Category: Digital Signage Blog Events, Digital Signage Blog Info, Digital Signage Blog News