Looping Content Is Dead - Get Dynamic Or Go Home

Editor's Notes

1. First, let’s take a look at content for digital signage. Digital Signage Content has historically been created in a photo, video or flash editing package, manually uploaded to a digital signage management solution ready to be used.
2. First, let’s take a look at content for digital signage. Digital Signage Content has historically been created in a photo, video or flash editing package, manually uploaded to a digital signage management solution ready to be used.
3. The world is changing, technology is evolving at a tremendous pace and the products and methods of working we have today will be resigned to history tomorrow.
4. This evolution affects everything in our lives, who would have thought that the iPhone would come along in 2007 and revolutionise the mobile phone market. Combining a phone, mp3 player and Internet browser in a single product the iPhone has taken the world by storm and thus far Apple has sold 40 million units..
5. Digital Signage is not exempt from evolution, I would like to take the opportunity today to talk to you about 3 areas of our industry affected by the emergence of new technology, they are the media content we use on our screens, the way we schedule content and how our digital signage content is played
6. First, let’s take a look at content for digital signage. Digital Signage Content has historically been created in a photo, video or flash editing package, manually uploaded to a digital signage management solution ready to be used.
7. The new generation of digital signage content replaces static, offline creation of expensive content with dynamic automatically generated media. What is enabling the use of dynamic media content, it’s an Open Standard for distribution of media content created by Yahoo called Media RSS.    
8. You may have heard of RSS as it the way that most digital signage packages create scrolling news tickers on screen.  
9. What Yahoo did was to take the text only RSS standard and add to it with the ability to include picture, video and animation. So what does Media RSS mean to media content for digital signage?  
10. Media for Digital Signage can be broken into three categories; user generated content, syndicated content and advertising content.
11. Let’s explore how Media RSS is changing the way digital media content is being incorporate into digital signage solutions. Let’s start with User Generated content.  
12. User Generated Content can be created using a range of packages that store the finished media content in a Media RSS format ready for use. 3 great examples include; Flypaper is a easy to use solution that allows non technical users to create high quality flash animation content.
13. Picnik enabled images to be created and stored online in Media RSS libraries such as Flickr and Photobucket enables video to be uploaded from a computer or from an iPhone and immediately available for use on.
14. Finally, our own signagelive message manager allows image templates to be edited by users and published as a Media RSS feed ready for use.
15. Second up is Syndicated Content, dynamic content created and published ready for use on your digital signage network.  
16. A great example is Screenfeed who provide a range of Media RSS channels including News & Sport, Entertainment and Weather. Each channel is updated several times every day to provide fresh and relevant content to entertain viewers.  
17. Another company providing licensed image content for Digital Signage using the Media RSS standard is Thinking Screen Media. Thinking Screen Media offer content for Digital Photo Frame technology through their Framechannel offering and to have recently sold their Signchannel proposition to Scala.
18.   So we have our own content and syndicated content, the final media content piece is advertising content.
19. Online Internet Advertising platforms such as Adtech.com currently provide the ability to serve up video adverts as Media RSS ready for use on Digital Signage networks. Adtech currently serve up 125 billion adverts every month across both Internet and mobile phone platforms.
20. It has also been widely reported that Google will extend their TV Ads offering beyond the current online video and cable TV offering and will include Digital Signage. Google TV Ads is based on the Adwords platform used in web based searches but extends the offering to enable advertisers to buy slots across a range of media channels that subscribe to the Google TV ads offering.  
21. Ok, so we have covered dynamic content and the use of Media RSS to enable integration with Digital Signage networks but how did we use them to schedule our content?  
22. Digital Signage Management software is now embracing Media RSS with companies such Tightrope, CoolSign, BrightSign and my own company signagelive already supporting the standard.   The benefit of Media RSS, you can replace costly manual scheduling and programming with rules in three simple steps.  
23. Step 1 Add the Media RSS feeds to your management software that you want to use.  
24. Step 2 Mix them up as required to create a dynamic playlist for Media RSS feeds.
25. Step 3 Deploy your dynamic Media RSS playlists to your digital signage players.   The great thing is, as each of the Media RSS feeds are updated all of your screens will dynamically reflect the changes without any manual intervention, creating a fluid, ever changing on screen experience. Never again will your viewers suffer visual fatigue watching loops on content that only changes when the next time someone decides they want to send down a manual content update.
26. Ok so we have covered media content and digital signage management systems and how they work with Media RSS to create dynamic digital signage solutions, but what about playing back the content, let’s look at the final piece of the jigsaw   
27. Traditionally, choosing a digital signage management solution meant you had to use the software player or hardware device developed by the same company. Not anymore, the Media RSS standard has made its way down to the players. IAdea has created an extended Media RSS player standard called SMIL.  
28. SMIL adds to the Media RSS standard with a set of functions that enables the configuration and control of SMIL enabled digital signage hardware. SMIL is an Open Standard and in addition to the devices created by IAdea, a range of leading manufacturers are creating cost effective SMIL enabled digital signage products being launched over the coming months. These include Advantech, Viewsonic, Mitsubishi with many others following suit.  
29. Ok so we have covered how Open Standards are changing the way content is accessed, networks are managed and devices playback their content. Each component interchangeable with multiple vendors give the customer real choice in how they build an optimal digital signage network.  
30. So what’s next ....
31. the next couple of years will see the Digital Signage sector collide with the a new generation of Internet Connected TV’s from the leading brands.   Internet TV combines traditional Satellite and Cable TV with connectivity to the Internet to provide support for additional media content to be downloaded and viewed on-demand.
32. Initially, Internet TV comprised of dedicated boxes from companies such as Apple, Roku and Boxee all vying for a place in your front room connected to your existing TV. These devices all still very popular and all utilise Media RSS to deliver Music, Movies, and Images to your Television and could all be utilised to playback digital signage content.    
33. However, Yahoo has been leading the charge with their Internet Connected TV Initiative, working with Samsung to offer Internet connectivity to their range of TV’s where the box is built-in to the TV doing away with the need for a separate device.   The problem has been so far that Apple, Roku and Yahoo have made it difficult for digital signage software companies to incorporate their software into the screens. Mainly due to the lengthy approval process and costs involved. This is about to change....  
34. Google TV has been announced with Google partnering with Intel and Sony to develop an Internet TV solution that utilises the Google Android operating system. Android is an open source operating system enabling digital signage software developers to easily develop new software that supports the Google TV technology. This will really open up the market and expect to see a new generation of digital signage solutions emerging that you will be able to download and install onto any Google TV in the very near future.
35. A Swedish company called the People of Lava are the first to release a range of Google Android enabled TV’s and you can be sure that many more will follow over the coming months and years.   
36. And what is underlying technology being used by both Yahoo and Google to deliver media content......yes you guessed it, Media RSS.  
37. We have covered how Media RSS is already impacting on the Digital Signage sector and Internet TV, but what else will benefit from this new standard?  
38. The iPad and the new WePad both support Media RSS as does the new range of Android Tablets  
39. iPhones and Google Phones support Media RSS, so expect to see the next generation of digital signage platforms enabling you to target a full range of devices, not just Large Format LCD Display but interactive technology including tablets and mobile phones.  
40. In the future any Internet connected device will have the potential to become a digital signage device, from In-car displays to ...  
41. Internet connected fridges.
42. We’ve taken a look at the power of dynamic content being enabled by the use of Media RSS and SMIL open standards, so what conclusions can we draw:  
43. So what have we learned: That you do not have to choose and stick to one supplier for the different parts of your DS system, open standards allow you to choose you content, CMS and players/screens from different vendors and they will all work together. That you do not have to rely on expensive programme and scheduling resources to create a dynamic digital signage network that is always ‘on message’ This is just the beginning, every day new content platforms, CMS platforms and playback/display devices are being launched providing more choice and competition will ensure you [the customer], wins. The days of static, boring, out of date, digital signage content are over....Looping content is DEAD
44. Many thanks for your time today and I’d be happy to answer any questions.  
45. First, let’s take a look at content for digital signage. Digital Signage Content has historically been created in a photo, video or flash editing package, manually uploaded to a digital signage management solution ready to be used.