Signs All Around
Jul 1, 2006 12:00 PM,
By Michael Goldman
At InfoComm, I noticed quantum leaps all over the technology landscape, particularly in two robust markets: houses of worship and digital signage.
On the HOW front, this issue profiles two state-of-the-art church installations — the massive renovation required to transform a movie theater complex into the Fellowship Dallas worship center and delicate sound reinforcement challenges at the First Baptist Alpharetta Church in Georgia.
At InfoComm, I met several experts from the HOW market who described a sea change taking place in the industry in recent years. But I found the digital signage guys were wearing even wider grins. The concept of using web-based servers to control signage networks appears to be catching on like wild fire.
Our May cover story examined the networked system designed by Wisconsin’s StrandVision for a major heavy equipment dealer, and writer Daniel Keller suggested that such technology and its potential applications are already transitioning from the “early adopter stage” to the “early majority phase,” and that certainly seems to be the case.
At InfoComm, for instance, Chyron was touting ChyTV to create and manage signage content, and Chyron expects to have several major networks built around that platform up and running this year. A new player, X2O Media, was also there, debuting its approach to networked digital signage with a tool called Xpresenter. At the Samsung booth, officials from Arizona’s DynaTek Media were happily promoting its secure digital signage network approach designed, in particular, for convenience store chains.
Such companies insist this paradigm shift is already well along in terms of infiltrating the advertising/promotional/marketing strategies of major corporations and niche companies in a wide range of industries. To help sort it all out, look for several digital signage networking case studies inside these pages in upcoming issues.
