Digital Signage is often spoken of as analogous to television, with a channel for each screen, or group of screens.
I think the definition is very much wider than this, and that Digital Signage is a medium that can be molded into almost any role.
But, going back to the tv channel analogy, I would just point out that, these days, a television channel isn't really a television channel any more. With VOD, of which the BBC iPlayer is the best example I know of, linear TV channels are an endangered species.
But how does Digital Signage relate to Video on Demand? Not obviously, but actually quite closely. Except that with Digital Signage the choosing is done by circumstances (a data feed, exceeding an environmental threshold, geographical location, number of people standing in front of the sign, iris recognition (eventually) etc).
All of which strongly suggests that digital signage (I hate calling it DOOH, but people search for it!) has a long way to go before its full potential is realised.
Friday, 22 May 2009
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Bargain of the century
In the sixties and seventies, it's what you'd have called a Radiogram.
Well, actually, it doesn't have a radio, it does play video, and you need to plug it into a stereo.
But it's just about the bargain of the century. I've been listening to it all day, courtesy of an 8MB USB memory stick I've plugged into the side of it.
It's a digital photo frame. It plays Divx videos, shows you pictures, plays music, and has a perfectly usable, if clunky user interface.
But that's OK, because it cost £24. That's all. It's one of those moments when you realise that electronics - measured by function - just keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
If you want one, they've got several hundred of them here.
Well, actually, it doesn't have a radio, it does play video, and you need to plug it into a stereo.
But it's just about the bargain of the century. I've been listening to it all day, courtesy of an 8MB USB memory stick I've plugged into the side of it.
It's a digital photo frame. It plays Divx videos, shows you pictures, plays music, and has a perfectly usable, if clunky user interface.
But that's OK, because it cost £24. That's all. It's one of those moments when you realise that electronics - measured by function - just keep getting cheaper and cheaper.
If you want one, they've got several hundred of them here.
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Egregious Digital Signage
Just had to write about this.
I was in a branch of Tesco Homeplus this afternoon, and saw what I can only say is one of the worst examples of digital signage I've seen for a long time.
It's a pity, because it was there for the best of reasons: explaining how to deal with the store's rather complicated system for buying things. Seems you can't just take stuff to the tills, but have to look at the label to see whether you have to order it, just take it to the checkout or have it delivered to your home.
Whatever.
The screens didn't look too bad to the "untrained" eye, but there was just about everything wrong with them. And it was carelessness more than anything.
There was a "video" insert in the middle of the screen that was playing some sort of animation - which was of a pretty high quality; but it was the wrong aspect ratio for the space set aside for it. So there was a black border above and below. Not the best sight.
And then, puzzlingly, and completely pointlessly, there was a slowly scrolling ticker at the bottom with the words "Welcome to Tesco".
In the top right was a clock, and top left was a logo.
What they should have done was just make the animation full screen. It would have been easier and the end result would have been better.
Less, you can never stress enough, is more.
I was in a branch of Tesco Homeplus this afternoon, and saw what I can only say is one of the worst examples of digital signage I've seen for a long time.
It's a pity, because it was there for the best of reasons: explaining how to deal with the store's rather complicated system for buying things. Seems you can't just take stuff to the tills, but have to look at the label to see whether you have to order it, just take it to the checkout or have it delivered to your home.
Whatever.
The screens didn't look too bad to the "untrained" eye, but there was just about everything wrong with them. And it was carelessness more than anything.
There was a "video" insert in the middle of the screen that was playing some sort of animation - which was of a pretty high quality; but it was the wrong aspect ratio for the space set aside for it. So there was a black border above and below. Not the best sight.
And then, puzzlingly, and completely pointlessly, there was a slowly scrolling ticker at the bottom with the words "Welcome to Tesco".
In the top right was a clock, and top left was a logo.
What they should have done was just make the animation full screen. It would have been easier and the end result would have been better.
Less, you can never stress enough, is more.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
European LED Mountain
Eurovision Song Contest. Spectacular, pointless, unwatchable, unmissable. All of those things.
Whatever.
The headline statistic for me was that thirty percent of the world's LED screens were used in the stage set.
That's a dubious statistic if ever I've heard one.
But even if there's a small element of truth in it, it sheds some insightful light on the LED video screen industry as a whole. Which is that it's obviously very small in comparison with other industries. If that was a third of its cumulative output in Moscow, then three times that number isn't very big.
And that's not surprising, because they're still very expensive, and will probably continue to be despite diminishing component costs.
The problem for LED screens is that customers demand higher resolutions, and in order to achieve, say, a six millimetre pitch (that's the distance between the LEDs) rather than a twelve millimetre one, you don't just have to double the number of LEDs - you have to square the number, because you're talking about an area rather than a linear dimension.
LEDs aren't the only components, but they're one of the most expensive. And they draw a lot of power. All of which is to say that LEDs aren't an ideal technology for outdoor large-scale video, but they're the best we've got at the moment.
Whatever.
The headline statistic for me was that thirty percent of the world's LED screens were used in the stage set.
That's a dubious statistic if ever I've heard one.
But even if there's a small element of truth in it, it sheds some insightful light on the LED video screen industry as a whole. Which is that it's obviously very small in comparison with other industries. If that was a third of its cumulative output in Moscow, then three times that number isn't very big.
And that's not surprising, because they're still very expensive, and will probably continue to be despite diminishing component costs.
The problem for LED screens is that customers demand higher resolutions, and in order to achieve, say, a six millimetre pitch (that's the distance between the LEDs) rather than a twelve millimetre one, you don't just have to double the number of LEDs - you have to square the number, because you're talking about an area rather than a linear dimension.
LEDs aren't the only components, but they're one of the most expensive. And they draw a lot of power. All of which is to say that LEDs aren't an ideal technology for outdoor large-scale video, but they're the best we've got at the moment.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
The real importance of 3D
I'm researching 3D quite a bit at the moment. I'm fascinated by the idea that you can extrapolate new camera angles from multiple existing ones. If you can do this, then, ultimately, "camera angle" will just be another setting you can manipulate in post production.
I think we're reaching a point with technology where this should be possible to a high quality, although real-time viewpoint interpolation may be a few years off.
One side benefit of being able to generate new viewpoints is that to be able to do this, you must first have been able to generate some sort of 3D model of the space in front of the cameras. That's a huge advantage for several reasons.
It takes ages to create 3D models of environments using conventional tools like Maya. Just creating a realistic street scene could take months, and cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. With viewpoint extrapolation, you could do it in real time.
And then, once you have your 3D model in place, you can start to apply environmental phenomena to it, like fog, depth of field, as well as integrating effectively with totally synthesised elements and characters.
There are surprisingly few papers on this technique, mainly, I suspect, because research is going on behind closed doors.
We're starting to see a few products, though: Microsoft Photosynth goes a long way towards it, and could surely be adapted for video, given enough processing power. Photosynth creates a 3D Point Cloud, not a vector model, so you'd need the equivalent of a 3D "autotrace" process to create a genuine 3D model that could form the basis of proper 3D environment; but I don't see why that shouldn't be possible - especially because with video there is so much more information than with still images.
And with video, you could probably generate a 3d space with one camera, as long as it was moving; but only for static objects, of course.
I think we're reaching a point with technology where this should be possible to a high quality, although real-time viewpoint interpolation may be a few years off.
One side benefit of being able to generate new viewpoints is that to be able to do this, you must first have been able to generate some sort of 3D model of the space in front of the cameras. That's a huge advantage for several reasons.
It takes ages to create 3D models of environments using conventional tools like Maya. Just creating a realistic street scene could take months, and cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. With viewpoint extrapolation, you could do it in real time.
And then, once you have your 3D model in place, you can start to apply environmental phenomena to it, like fog, depth of field, as well as integrating effectively with totally synthesised elements and characters.
There are surprisingly few papers on this technique, mainly, I suspect, because research is going on behind closed doors.
We're starting to see a few products, though: Microsoft Photosynth goes a long way towards it, and could surely be adapted for video, given enough processing power. Photosynth creates a 3D Point Cloud, not a vector model, so you'd need the equivalent of a 3D "autotrace" process to create a genuine 3D model that could form the basis of proper 3D environment; but I don't see why that shouldn't be possible - especially because with video there is so much more information than with still images.
And with video, you could probably generate a 3d space with one camera, as long as it was moving; but only for static objects, of course.
Monday, 11 May 2009
3D is more than just another dimension
Like it or not, 3D is going to be big. It's also going to be a headache for viewers and content producers, literally if the current techniques don't improve radically.
Does it have a role in digital signage? Yes, in specialised formats.
It's actually been around for five or six years now, in the form of lenticular displays - much like the old "animated" postcards you used to be able to buy, that showed two or more different scenes as you rotated the card. Of course the resolution suffers, and the animation quality isn't great; but it's an effective low-tech method of grabbing people's attention.
Whether it turns into a mainstream medium depends on how much the display technology improves, what it costs, and how easy or difficult it is to make the content. There's a big move in Hollywood towards 3D movie making, and perhaps some of this enthusiasm will filter into the advertising domain.
But I think there's a much bigger use for 3D technology. And it's nothing to do with watching adverts in 3D.
You see, if you're filming in 3D, then you must be using more than one lens. And you'll end up with a recording of the same scene from two different viewpoints.
As processing gets cheaper and more abundant, it's going to become trivially easy to use the image from one lens to "correct" any deficiencies in the other lens. By having a way to compare between the two lenses, you have the means to correct the image in either of them.
I would imagine that lenses are by far the most expensive part of any camera system. They are precision devices that are less amenable to mass production than, say, a sensor, or a circuit board.
Modern professional lenses are simply so good, though, that you might think they don't need correcting.
That's largely true of Prime lenses, but zoom devices often have quite severe problems at their extreme ranges.
So, you could either use 3d-facilitated correction to allow you to film at the more extreme ends of a lens's performance envelope, or you could make an even bigger difference by using much cheaper lenses in the first place, and use each to correct the other.
In fact, you might even end up with a "cluster" of very cheap lenses, that, together, can give an outstanding picture.
There are much further reaching techniques than these, which I'll deal with in a future post.
Does it have a role in digital signage? Yes, in specialised formats.
It's actually been around for five or six years now, in the form of lenticular displays - much like the old "animated" postcards you used to be able to buy, that showed two or more different scenes as you rotated the card. Of course the resolution suffers, and the animation quality isn't great; but it's an effective low-tech method of grabbing people's attention.
Whether it turns into a mainstream medium depends on how much the display technology improves, what it costs, and how easy or difficult it is to make the content. There's a big move in Hollywood towards 3D movie making, and perhaps some of this enthusiasm will filter into the advertising domain.
But I think there's a much bigger use for 3D technology. And it's nothing to do with watching adverts in 3D.
You see, if you're filming in 3D, then you must be using more than one lens. And you'll end up with a recording of the same scene from two different viewpoints.
As processing gets cheaper and more abundant, it's going to become trivially easy to use the image from one lens to "correct" any deficiencies in the other lens. By having a way to compare between the two lenses, you have the means to correct the image in either of them.
I would imagine that lenses are by far the most expensive part of any camera system. They are precision devices that are less amenable to mass production than, say, a sensor, or a circuit board.
Modern professional lenses are simply so good, though, that you might think they don't need correcting.
That's largely true of Prime lenses, but zoom devices often have quite severe problems at their extreme ranges.
So, you could either use 3d-facilitated correction to allow you to film at the more extreme ends of a lens's performance envelope, or you could make an even bigger difference by using much cheaper lenses in the first place, and use each to correct the other.
In fact, you might even end up with a "cluster" of very cheap lenses, that, together, can give an outstanding picture.
There are much further reaching techniques than these, which I'll deal with in a future post.
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Digital Wallpaper
I don't want to sound big headed about this, but it looks to me like most people don't really get the Amazon Kindle.
Yes, it's a fantastic portable reading device. Yes, I want one. And no, I can't get one, because I'm in Europe.
But what's really exciting about it is that it uses Digital Ink.
Digital Ink is not an LCD or LED technology. It's not OLED. In fact, it's not any kind of technology that emits light. And it doesn't consume power, either.
What was that? Doesn't consume power?
Not once the page has "turned". It only uses energy when the image is changing. Thereafter, the image stays there until it's changed again.
Now, I've thought for quite a long time that we're all obsessed with video. We expect every new device to have some kind of video capability: just look at Smart Phones.
But I really don't see why every display device has to be able to play moving images.
That's where digital ink really, er, shines.
Eventually, digital ink is going to be very cheap. It will be in colour. It will probably display video, as well, but that doesn't matter.
What does matter is that we're on the verge of being able to replace just about every printed surface with an electronically updatable one.
At that point, digital signage signage will be the world's most powerful medium.
Yes, it's a fantastic portable reading device. Yes, I want one. And no, I can't get one, because I'm in Europe.
But what's really exciting about it is that it uses Digital Ink.
Digital Ink is not an LCD or LED technology. It's not OLED. In fact, it's not any kind of technology that emits light. And it doesn't consume power, either.
What was that? Doesn't consume power?
Not once the page has "turned". It only uses energy when the image is changing. Thereafter, the image stays there until it's changed again.
Now, I've thought for quite a long time that we're all obsessed with video. We expect every new device to have some kind of video capability: just look at Smart Phones.
But I really don't see why every display device has to be able to play moving images.
That's where digital ink really, er, shines.
Eventually, digital ink is going to be very cheap. It will be in colour. It will probably display video, as well, but that doesn't matter.
What does matter is that we're on the verge of being able to replace just about every printed surface with an electronically updatable one.
At that point, digital signage signage will be the world's most powerful medium.
I'd never say that...
Writing a new article on the effect of accelerating technology on the broadcast and production industries.
It's inevitably going to mention the Red One, which has almost singlehandedly validated a prediction I made about five years ago in Camcorder User Magazine: that soon (in about five years, actually) there would be no real distinction between digital still and digital video cameras. This was at a time when small digital compact cameras had a res of between two and four megapixels; but even those pitiful resolutions are still HD in video terms.
I was told at the time by people in the industry that you'd never be able to get the information off the sensors quickly enough for video.
So, here's my tip for making predictions: whenever someone says "never", just substitute "about five years".
It's inevitably going to mention the Red One, which has almost singlehandedly validated a prediction I made about five years ago in Camcorder User Magazine: that soon (in about five years, actually) there would be no real distinction between digital still and digital video cameras. This was at a time when small digital compact cameras had a res of between two and four megapixels; but even those pitiful resolutions are still HD in video terms.
I was told at the time by people in the industry that you'd never be able to get the information off the sensors quickly enough for video.
So, here's my tip for making predictions: whenever someone says "never", just substitute "about five years".
New article on business aspects of digital advertising
Just had a new article published in AV Specialist - one of the best broadcast technology magazines (but distributed mainly in the Middle East and Africa).
It's about the business aspects of digital advertising.
(Note that the link loads a magazine e-reader. Once you get used to it, it works rather well).
It's about the business aspects of digital advertising.
(Note that the link loads a magazine e-reader. Once you get used to it, it works rather well).
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Nano screens...
Struggling to get comments working sensibly on this new blog so I'm posting responses in the blog itself for now. Here's a good one on the last post from Adam Grzesiczak:
"Problem is how we are seeing the world and how screens are build.
What we basically need is not to light up the pixels [LED for example] but change the pixels/picture on atom level, which we can do it using nano technology, let me explain.
We are trying to get pixels smaller and smaller and put millions of them in 1cm square and somehow light them up, pixels, LED, EInk, etc../
But if we want perfect screen, without pixels, you have to start changing image on atom levels and light them with normal light, then you are not gonna see the pixels but natural image, that what you are seeing now [not the screen] look at your wall, desk, water, bike, car you can see it but its not a screen, the light is coming from the sun and is reflecting by those things and coming into your eye [photons].
So we need to create dynamic screen which is gonna be able to change his nano structure [atomic structure], not lighting up the LEDs. More simple, create Dynamically changing atomic structure which you can control, sound easy but it's not...
That's the next level of Digital Signage and the world we live in.
I think changing image into vector graphics it's a good idea so brain will think that is not a screen.
How brain see and memorize things its a different story, perfect world for digital signage is Matrix which I hope will never come...
Otherwise you gonna have HDMI extreme input on the back of you head, plus couple of USB :)"
"Problem is how we are seeing the world and how screens are build.
What we basically need is not to light up the pixels [LED for example] but change the pixels/picture on atom level, which we can do it using nano technology, let me explain.
We are trying to get pixels smaller and smaller and put millions of them in 1cm square and somehow light them up, pixels, LED, EInk, etc../
But if we want perfect screen, without pixels, you have to start changing image on atom levels and light them with normal light, then you are not gonna see the pixels but natural image, that what you are seeing now [not the screen] look at your wall, desk, water, bike, car you can see it but its not a screen, the light is coming from the sun and is reflecting by those things and coming into your eye [photons].
So we need to create dynamic screen which is gonna be able to change his nano structure [atomic structure], not lighting up the LEDs. More simple, create Dynamically changing atomic structure which you can control, sound easy but it's not...
That's the next level of Digital Signage and the world we live in.
I think changing image into vector graphics it's a good idea so brain will think that is not a screen.
How brain see and memorize things its a different story, perfect world for digital signage is Matrix which I hope will never come...
Otherwise you gonna have HDMI extreme input on the back of you head, plus couple of USB :)"
Pixellation
I've never been a fan of pixels.
I mean, they're square, whereas virtually nothing in the real world is.
But I like them even less now that just about everyone has an opinion on them, which is usually that the more of them you have, the better.
You can hardly blame them (people, not pixels, that is) because digital cameras and screens keep getting better - visibly so; and, at the same time, they seem to have more and more pixels. So it's an easy causal connection to spot.
Except that it's not necessarily true.
And I'm not even referring here to the increasingly commonly accepted truth that if you have too many pixels in a restricted space the resulting electronic noise will outweigh the resolution benefits. Nor am I talking about the fact that if you have gazillions of perfectly nice pixels but a horrible lens you'll get an accurate capture of a terrible optical image.
What I mean is, we don't see in pixels.
The way we see is at least an order of magnitude more complicated than any electronic/digital imaging device we've ever build. Software emulations of our brain mechanisms have at least twelve simultaneous processes going on to identify and track an image. And none of them use pixels.
Ultimately, the closer we get to the actual point of perception (is there such a point?) what we are seeing is objects, not pixels.
We percieve a face, a zebra, a pair of glasses, and a bannana (although, typically, not in the same scene). When we remember an image of a face on the television, we don't remember the pattern of pixels: we remember the features.
And we have, in our heads, a database of features. That's how we recognise things: from a kit of parts.
And this, I think, is the future of video.
Demonstrations of Ultra High Definition, with as many as sixteen megapixels per frame (as opposed to around 2.5 mexapixels for "standard" high definition) are incredibly impressive. But unless they show more "objects", then, ultimately it's pointless.
What this means is that when we compress video, we shouldn't be looking at patterns of pixels, but identifying objects, and storing them in a heirachical set of characteristics.
Playing them back would be a case of redrawing the scene with vectors rather than pixels.
And, as we all know, vector graphics always look sharp. Whatever the resolution of the playback device.
Interestingly, what we now know as "artifacts" would come in two varieties with vector video:
As the bandwidth drops, faces would become less recognisable and more generic.
And as the data connection fails completely, instead of seeing the "multicoloured chess board" type of artifacts that you get with MPEG, instead of a face, you might get a teapot.
I mean, they're square, whereas virtually nothing in the real world is.
But I like them even less now that just about everyone has an opinion on them, which is usually that the more of them you have, the better.
You can hardly blame them (people, not pixels, that is) because digital cameras and screens keep getting better - visibly so; and, at the same time, they seem to have more and more pixels. So it's an easy causal connection to spot.
Except that it's not necessarily true.
And I'm not even referring here to the increasingly commonly accepted truth that if you have too many pixels in a restricted space the resulting electronic noise will outweigh the resolution benefits. Nor am I talking about the fact that if you have gazillions of perfectly nice pixels but a horrible lens you'll get an accurate capture of a terrible optical image.
What I mean is, we don't see in pixels.
The way we see is at least an order of magnitude more complicated than any electronic/digital imaging device we've ever build. Software emulations of our brain mechanisms have at least twelve simultaneous processes going on to identify and track an image. And none of them use pixels.
Ultimately, the closer we get to the actual point of perception (is there such a point?) what we are seeing is objects, not pixels.
We percieve a face, a zebra, a pair of glasses, and a bannana (although, typically, not in the same scene). When we remember an image of a face on the television, we don't remember the pattern of pixels: we remember the features.
And we have, in our heads, a database of features. That's how we recognise things: from a kit of parts.
And this, I think, is the future of video.
Demonstrations of Ultra High Definition, with as many as sixteen megapixels per frame (as opposed to around 2.5 mexapixels for "standard" high definition) are incredibly impressive. But unless they show more "objects", then, ultimately it's pointless.
What this means is that when we compress video, we shouldn't be looking at patterns of pixels, but identifying objects, and storing them in a heirachical set of characteristics.
Playing them back would be a case of redrawing the scene with vectors rather than pixels.
And, as we all know, vector graphics always look sharp. Whatever the resolution of the playback device.
Interestingly, what we now know as "artifacts" would come in two varieties with vector video:
As the bandwidth drops, faces would become less recognisable and more generic.
And as the data connection fails completely, instead of seeing the "multicoloured chess board" type of artifacts that you get with MPEG, instead of a face, you might get a teapot.
Nobody's talking
One of my ongoing themes is simplicity. I think most portals into the digital world are too complicated - especially when it comes to information exchange.
It's complicated, of course, because the world is complicated. If we were just binary beings, the only thing we'd want (or could) say to each other would be "I'm 1" or "I'm 0"; but in the real world, there's an unimaginably large number of states we could possibly be in. Multiply this by the number of states that everyone and everything else could be in and you're in the region that might as well be described as infinity.
So you have to simplify things.
You could do this by simply ignoring a lot of options; and that's OK if you're working in a specialised field.
In practise, what you have to do is agree on the categories of information that you want to exchange, work out all the variations that you want to be able to describe, and then come to some sort of mutually acceptable means of interchange.
Sounds arduous, doesn't it? Yes, but in narrow industry sectors this tends to happen anyway.
Except that it doesn't seem to be happening in digital signage.
You could argue that XML, JSON, SOAP, WSDL and stuff like that are standards; but I'm not talking about that level of interchange.
What I'm talking about is the ability to exchange bookings, schedules, screen layouts, hybridization schema, and so-one. The ability to make any digital signage content work on any player.
Without it, we're wasting too much of our time devising bespoke solutions, and not enough effort in trying to make the industry grow as a whole into the massive media phenomenon we know it's going to be, someday.
In fact, I do have answers to these. I'll hint at some examples over the next few posts.
It's complicated, of course, because the world is complicated. If we were just binary beings, the only thing we'd want (or could) say to each other would be "I'm 1" or "I'm 0"; but in the real world, there's an unimaginably large number of states we could possibly be in. Multiply this by the number of states that everyone and everything else could be in and you're in the region that might as well be described as infinity.
So you have to simplify things.
You could do this by simply ignoring a lot of options; and that's OK if you're working in a specialised field.
In practise, what you have to do is agree on the categories of information that you want to exchange, work out all the variations that you want to be able to describe, and then come to some sort of mutually acceptable means of interchange.
Sounds arduous, doesn't it? Yes, but in narrow industry sectors this tends to happen anyway.
Except that it doesn't seem to be happening in digital signage.
You could argue that XML, JSON, SOAP, WSDL and stuff like that are standards; but I'm not talking about that level of interchange.
What I'm talking about is the ability to exchange bookings, schedules, screen layouts, hybridization schema, and so-one. The ability to make any digital signage content work on any player.
Without it, we're wasting too much of our time devising bespoke solutions, and not enough effort in trying to make the industry grow as a whole into the massive media phenomenon we know it's going to be, someday.
In fact, I do have answers to these. I'll hint at some examples over the next few posts.
Digital, er, whatever.
I actually started this blog in 2007 - or should I say, I set it up then. Such was my enthusiasm for blogging that I not only omitted to write anything for it, I actually forgot about it completely until I came across Blogger again by accident, and found that I was logged in due to my Gmail password being valid on both accounts.
So, there I was, faced with the pitiful sight of a two year-old blog with precisely zero entries.
Well, that's all changed now, because I'm busy trying to stoke up enthusiasm for some of my ideas around digital signage, digital advertising, and the daddy of them all: Digital Presence.
What's Digital Presence?
It's the idea that every organisation needs to have a marketing or information presence in the digital domain, which can include web sites, video, brochures and - of course - digital signage.
What's different about this idea is that rather than being a new and untried marketing method that relies on flaky and somewhat unproven technology, it is - very simply - an extension of what your organisation is probably already doing. You're already making websites. You're already putting videos on YouTube (and if you're not, then you probably should be); and you've already got a server somewhere with all your digital assets.
So, getting into digital signage could be as simple as putting a slightly repurposed version of your website (or part of it) on a display somewhere. Might not sound very exciting, but if the information's there, already, then it's not too difficult.
There's a lot more to this, and some of it is commercially confidential, I'm afraid. But you're going to see more and more of Digital Presence as I roll out the concepts in real installations over the next months and years.
I'll keep this up to date with developments, and might ask for a few opinions along the way.
(By the way, there's a digital signage company in the UK called Digital Presence, and, in the interests of full disclosure, I'm a shareholder).
So, there I was, faced with the pitiful sight of a two year-old blog with precisely zero entries.
Well, that's all changed now, because I'm busy trying to stoke up enthusiasm for some of my ideas around digital signage, digital advertising, and the daddy of them all: Digital Presence.
What's Digital Presence?
It's the idea that every organisation needs to have a marketing or information presence in the digital domain, which can include web sites, video, brochures and - of course - digital signage.
What's different about this idea is that rather than being a new and untried marketing method that relies on flaky and somewhat unproven technology, it is - very simply - an extension of what your organisation is probably already doing. You're already making websites. You're already putting videos on YouTube (and if you're not, then you probably should be); and you've already got a server somewhere with all your digital assets.
So, getting into digital signage could be as simple as putting a slightly repurposed version of your website (or part of it) on a display somewhere. Might not sound very exciting, but if the information's there, already, then it's not too difficult.
There's a lot more to this, and some of it is commercially confidential, I'm afraid. But you're going to see more and more of Digital Presence as I roll out the concepts in real installations over the next months and years.
I'll keep this up to date with developments, and might ask for a few opinions along the way.
(By the way, there's a digital signage company in the UK called Digital Presence, and, in the interests of full disclosure, I'm a shareholder).
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