Monthly Archives: April 2017

It pays to buy professional content

 

plan your content well

Ever wonder why it pays to spend money on professional content?  Read on…

There are lots of folks out there investing time and money on digital signage.  Many won’t think twice about spending on displays, software, network cabling…  all the bits and pieces needed to get screens in front of people.  You’d think content would be at the top of that list, but in many cases you would be wrong.

People hate paying for content.  Any content.  They just flat out hate it.  I know, I hear it all the time.

Content is at the heart of digital signage, yet few people want to spend money on it.  It’s like pictures will magically appear on the screens after you turn them on.  Mission accomplished!

Well, if you’re budgeting for a digital project and you don’t factor in the cost of content, you’re doing it wrong.  If you only cost-out the software to run your screens and schedule your content, you’re missing the point.  Unless you have staff who are ready to feed your new screens with high quality content, and update the content regularly, you won’t have anything good to show on your screens.  The audience will keep looking at their smartphones as they walk by your shiny new TVs.  #Sad.

You may think you can google search your way to “free” content.  You may think you can grab a few  RSS feeds from various news outlets.  Read the fine print.  Unless the content is covered under a Creative Commons licence authorizing free use, you can’t use it without written authorization from the copyright holder.  It’s about as legal as copying a Hollywood blockbuster on a DVD.

Here’s another way to look at it.  You buy a car, you expect to pay for the gas needed to run it.  Think of paid content as the “gas” for your screens.  It’s what makes them run.

There are plenty of ways to acquire professional, curated content legally and it usually involves some form of subscription.  So if you’re thinking you can get away with a $20 or $30 monthly Cloud CMS player software fee, you’re probably $5 or $10 short.

Paying for content is smart.

  • You get professional content that is licensed for redistribution.
  • You get content that is updated periodically (sometimes even daily) so all the work is done for you.
  • The content is well written.  The graphics and videos are at the correct resolution.  It’s high-quality and professional content.
  • The content provider is responsible for ensuring the content is always available and refreshed.
  • You usually pay a fee per player, per month so it’s easy to calculate your costs and scale as you grow your network.
  • Your audience is engaged and entertained.

There are many sources for professional, paid content.  You can get news, sport scores, trivia, weather…

Here are a few suggestions:

Digital signage screens are only as effective as the content you play on them.  If you rely on information scraped from around the web you will get poor results.  It doesn’t matter if you are deploying one screen or a thousand.  It pays to have someone else do the work for you.  There is a cost for this service, but the return is well worth it.

Check out the Sixteen:Nine interview of Jerome Moeri, CEO of Navori Labs

Jerome Moeri, CEO of Navori Labs talks about his company, and the future of the digital signage industry.

Jerome Moeri, CEO of Navori Labs

I came across a recent interview of Jerome Moeri, CEO of Navori Labs on David Haynes’ Sixteen:Nine podcast.  In this episode, Mr. Moeri talks about the company’s history and provides some insights into its future.  He also shares his thoughts about the digital signage industry as a whole, and how the market is evolving.  Navori Labs may not be well known outside the industry, but it’s a thriving global business based on a solid software platform.

About Navori

Navori Labs is a Swiss based software development company that has been totally dedicated to the digital signage market since it’s inception, 20 years ago.  Navori Labs is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland and the company has offices in Montreal, Canada; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Navori Labs has in excess of 100,000 licenses in the field and a thriving Cloud business.

The company currently supports PCs running on Microsoft Windows, Google Android devices, and System on Chip (SoC) displays.

I have had the opportunity to work closely with Navori for the past 13 years, and continue to support the company’s efforts in North America by providing consulting services for their products.

Digital Signage Expo 2017 Observations

TDigital Signage Expo - Navori QL Stix 3500 powering 9 display video wallhis year’s Digital Signage Expo was another big success with a steady stream of visitors on the first day.  Visitor traffic was a bit lighter on the second day but it was still quite good.  I haven’t seen any official figures but I would say this year’s DSE was at least as well attended as last year.  There were lots of interest in digital signage CMS software and media player hardware.

The Navori booth had a video wall powered by a single QL Stix 3500 Android Media Player which was impressive.  The media player is the tiny grey box right under the video wall in the picture on the left.  It’s also the same as the unit on the desk in front of me.  It’s capable of delivering full 4K content which is quite amazing for such a compact device.

 

 

There were lots of impressive display and hardware installations all around the show floor.

I was mesmerized by the articulated LG OLED displays.

Samsung also had an impressive stand, as always.

There were many other interesting displays, such as this electric vehicle charging station in the Peerless AV booth.  Integrating a digital signage display in this installation makes a lot of sense.  These displays would be ideal for advertising, public information, branding and many other related uses.  You could even install a touch screen and deliver a wayfinding app with options to search for other charging stations.

Electric Vehicle Charging Station Signage

Here is Gable’s booth showing a range of displays for outdoor and indoor installations.  Notice the circular LED banner above the booth.

Digital Signage Displays

There were even car-top mounted displays which would be ideal for taxi cabs and delivery vehicles.

Car-top mounted digital signage

Anyone looking at deploying digital signage displays or interested in any related business should make it a point to visit Digital Signage Expo.  It’s the only place where you will see such an assortment of products and solutions that are focused on this market.

The DSE organizers have confirmed the next year’s show (and the next one after) will be held on the same dates which is great.  Having the dates switch around from late February to March made it a bit hard to plan for.

I’m already looking forward to DSE 2018!