Recent Marketing Chart numbers show that for news readers, internet surpassed print media this year as a primary source of news and information. Not suprisingly, the gap is swiftly narrowing with television viewership going down as the internet continues to take a hold on the eyeballs around the world. 

Digital sign news sources may never have the broad reaching impact of television and the internet, but they'll certainly shape up as being a place to glean news from in an "out-of-home" environment. The only problem for me is that I do my news and information hording "in-the home" not "out-of-home."

User Generated Content is like a magnet for consumers. It allows for aggregation of massive amounts of data from thousands of sources, creating a huge database of information and content which is, in many instances, free from copyright laws.

Currently, there is a near glut of this "user generated content" on the internet. We're inundated with it. It seems I'm constantly being referred to some YouTube video by a friend. Connecting the surplus with lack of content in the digital signage realm will be a viable and usable business venture connecting UGC on the web with needed content space on digital displays.

YouTube recently starting piloting HD videos, a realm already illuminated by such sites as reVVer.com, Blip.tv, and Vimeo. With the use of feed subscriptions, UGC will be a great and viable source for high def digital signage content as networks are established and software continues to evolve forward.

I read an article today written by the venerable Tim O'Reilly where he talks about the similarities in "business" leadership structures used by Google, WalMart and Barack Obama. O'Reilly attributes success to data, specifically the ability to collect, analyze, and report back data (massive amounts of data) in a timely and useful way.

"Competitive advantage comes from capturing data more quickly, and building systems to respond automatically to that data."

Known in the business sector for their sleek digital signage players, Roku has also positioned themselves well with online video rental giant Netflix for online video streaming. Many are talking about how the device is the "current" choice of Neflix, with other, more broad options becoming available later. 

“By now you’ve discovered our new home screen. This screen will become your launching pad for a number of great new channels that will begin to appear on your player in early 2009. In addition to the hugely popular Netflix channel, you’ll see movie channels, TV channels, web video and more! We’ve also upgraded your player to support an advanced video format that will deliver better video quality, especially over Internet connections. Finally, your player is now fully HD compatible. If you have an HDTV, select ‘update display type’ below to get the full HD experience. (Tip: visit www.netflix.com/InstantHD for HD movies from Netflix.)”

The inception of Apple's iTV is moving us from an out-of-home environment to an in-the-home environment for digital signage media players.

Recent reports have indicated the world has reached and surpased the 4 billion mark for cellular phone users worldwide, a hefty number indeed. Perhaps even more intriguing is the fact that cell phones have now reached over 627 million in China. Phone usage total in China has recently come close to 1 billion, reaching a astronomical 627 for mobile and 352 for land lanes as of October 2008, a total reaching 979 million. 

With such a personalized electonic device available to individuals worldwide, it's no wonder that 40% of digital sign networks will have cellular phone interactivity in the next several years. It is also interesting to note that currently text message and data plans account for over 33% of revenue for cellular phone providers. A fact that is not suprising due to the high markup of text message and data plans. 

Original post at Textually.org

This application is simply just cool. When a larger version is eventually developed its application with dynamic and interactive touchscreen applications will be off the charts! It was originally the brainchild of Cambridge professors, but a newer smaller prototype of the device has been developed by our good pals in Canada:

Last year, Baudisch and Daniel Wigdor of Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, led a team that developed a fix to that. Their "transparent" LucidTouch device let users interact with a screen from the reverse side.

A new, smaller prototype created by Baudisch and his student Gerry Chu at the University of Toronto takes the idea further. Called NanoTouch, it has a 6-centimetre (2.4 inch) screen and a touch pad of the same size on the back . It can detect the touch or press of a finger, allowing the user to move a tiny cursor around and click and drag with it.

Watch the video.