The evidence is hard to miss – it’s literally right before your eyes. Sophisticated multimedia digital signage is popping up everywhere:
- In retail establishments such as Wal-Mart – where you can see exclusive concert videos promoting new DVD releases – as well as Best Buy and even your local grocery and convenience stores;
- In heavily trafficked government offices – such as the U.S. Post Office, deploying one of the largest digital signage networks in the U.S.;
- At virtually every concert, trade show, sporting match, or other public event you attend;
- And in many other locations, ranging from fitness clubs in Germany and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, to airports, highways, and corporate offices worldwide.
Multimedia digital signage is popping up everywhere. Here, an example of transit station using Inscriber’s InfoCaster technology to display dynamic content from multiple sources – weather, service and arrival notices, a display ad and an advertising crawl.
More significant is what most of us (as consumers) don’t see: The advent of large-scale dynamic signage networks powered by the converging technologies of computing and broadcasting. Such networks allow retailers, government agencies, marketing and entertainment companies, and many other organizations to cost-effectively “narrowcast” dynamic video, graphical, and editorial content on hundreds or even thousands of digital signage displays located virtually anywhere.
During the next five years, just one slice of the digital signage market – sales of indoor and outdoor retail dynamic displays – will grow nearly 300 percent, from about $550 million in 2003 to $1.5 billion by 2008, according to iSuppli/Stanford Resources, a Santa Clara, Calif., market research firm. Yet the booming digital signage market currently has no business media, trade magazine, or trade show directly serving it. Until today.
Welcome to the premier issue of Digital Signage Update, a new e-mail newsletter from PRIMEDIA Business, one of the world’s leading business-to-business publishers. To launch Digital Signage Update, we have pooled the resources of American City & County, Broadcast Engineering, and Retail Traffic, Video Systems, – all award-winning publications that serve various segments of the digital signage marketplace. We are supported by three premier, exclusive advertisers – ActiveLight, Inscriber, and Sony Electronics.
Twice monthly, Digital Signage Update will bring you in-depth features, interviews, the latest news and events, and new products specifically serving the burgeoning narrowcasting marketplace. We believe Digital Signage Update will become an essential information resource as your organization (or its customers) embraces the full possibilities of digital signage. But let us know what you think.
– Brad Dick, Editorial Director
– Dennis Triola, Publisher
