Feb
25
WRITTEN BY:
David Cummins
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Digital signage is now ubiquitous technology. The business benefit of digital signage is realised when providing dynamic and engaging content, that is, where the content can be exchanged easily and be adapted to the context and audience, especially when compared to static signage.
At Frame, we see that digital signage is an excellent mechanism to extend and enrich information sources that we have traditionally delivered to desktops and mobile web browsers. The accessibility of digital signage makes us think about how this medium can be used for public and internal information, enhancing the environment and influencing customer behaviour.
As with any communication, for digital signage, content is king. Digital signage brings a new paradigm to displaying content.
Digital signage always consists of a display, content and nowadays is linked to intelligent network infrastructure. As with the variety of modern web browsers, the form and range of displays can vary—from standard LCD and LED monitors, to commercial-grade plasma displays, all the way up to video-wall installations, depending on the messaging to be displayed. You would typically see video walls at large retail centres or at the cricket displaying scores.
One of the greatest shifts we have seen has been the ability to connect and control large, disparate systems. Whether across an airport, university campus or a retail branch network, the content can be centrally controlled yet tailored to specific locations. For example, universities in the USA are installing digital signage across their campuses to allow them to immediately notify and redirect students in the case of a dangerous situation. This could have been used to great effect during a recent stabbing and robbery at a Sydney university, where the signs could have immediately displayed a message like ‘move to oval, avoid building 26’. Being IP content, the text messages can also be sent via SMS, email, or converted to voice.
Where the business model is founded on advertising or governance is required for surety of content delivery, solutions that are deployed over a network can have proof-of-play systems that report on what was actually playing on each screen at that particular time.
One area that Frame is forging innovative architectures in, is the use of databases to develop near-real time flight information display systems (FIDS). You would typically see FIDS at any airport to let you know of arrival and departures times, gate numbers and boarding status, where to retrieve your baggage, and even which security station is currently open. It would be fair to say that airports would not run efficiently if it were not for digital signage.
The challenges in designing these information systems lie in the immediacy of the content and how quickly it needs to be disseminated to the target audience. In our FIDS solution, flight and gate updates are processed every couple of seconds and broadcast to 300+ digital displays, as well as to the downstream consumers of flight information—hotels, mobile phones, web browsers and other systems.
Traditional digital signage systems would not be able to cope with this volume of updates. As a result, Frame developed a middleware platform that complements vendors’ digital media platforms. This means we are able to render complex templates that are then integrated with internal databases, as well as externally available data feeds, such as weather information. The platform allows Active Directory authentication and a control interface through IP phones and web browsers.
The future of digital signage is only limited by our imagination. One only has to watch Blade Runner to see how the technology may evolve.