Free Digital Signage (scheduled for Oct 13th)

Public release on October 13, 2008  

 

Public release of Free Digital Signage is around the corner.

We pushed back the release to October 13th so we can fix a few more issues before we open the doors. 

We want you to be impressed with the Signage presentation software we created so we are working day and night to fix all issues at hand.

 

We need to deliver a quality solution that you and your customers can benefit from … thus the delay in release !

 

 

What’s in store for the near future  

 

We have hundreds of features lined up including tuner card support, global weather RSS and much more. We are overwhelmed by the positive feedback we have been getting and we thank you for your support 

Stay tuned as we are almost ready.

 

 

Want to be a reseller ?  

 

We have been getting lots of requests for reseller accounts. 

MediaSignage presents a great opportunity to Digital Signage resellers due to our lower cost of ownership, multi OS compatibility and ease of deployment.

 

Our inexpensive solution presents a real breakthrough and allows resellers to finally rollout signage solutions to all businesses, large and small. The reseller platform will be available at the beginning of 2009.

 

 

If you have questions, suggestions or any other feedback please drop us a quick email so we can stay in touch… 

You can contact us at mstech@mediasignage.com or reply to our online blog or even drop a post on the online forum

Digital Signage shared media files

Sharing your Signage with the world

We are proud of our Digital Signage solution and we definitely want to get your feedback so we can make changes and improvements. One of things we are working on for the final release of the complete narrowcasting solution is shared resources.

With this new upcoming feature of shared resources you will be able to make your videos, images and animations available for others to enjoy. Why you say ? Well they will do the same for you. Having everyone open up their resources for public use will make building an impressive digital signage presentation a snap.

Shared resources enables all of Media Signage’s users to get access to a huge library of media files.

Just imagine if you own a pet shop. You go the library of shared resources and pick a vector image of a dog, an animation of cat walking or a video of a dog playing catch.

Simply drag and these media files to your timeline and start enjoying a rich signage presentation without the hassle of building everything from scratch.

Share resources is just another way we at Media Signage are breaking the rules of traditional digital signage.

We hope you help us build a rich library by uploading your media files for everyone to enjoy. Just remember that any resources you load must be open for usage and not protected by copyright laws.

Stay tuned for more upcoming Signage goodness in this blog.

Sean L – MediaSignage.com co-founder

Free Digital Signage vs $7000.00

In the recent WireSpring Blog Bill Gerba ( http://www.wirespring.com/dynamic_digital_signage_and_interactive_kiosks_journal/articles/A_new_look_at_the_costs_of_digital_signage_networks_and_content-338.html ) estimated the avg cost of Digital Signage as $7000.00 for a 100 monitor setup.

 

Cost of a digital sign for 3 years
40″ LCD screen	$1,500
Player hardware	$1,200
Display mount	$250
Player software	$500
Management software & tech support	$1,800
Installation	$1,200
Initial project management	$300
Total	$6,750

 

And while certain things are a must haves such as the hardware, with MediaSignage free Digital Signage solution you can save $3800.00 per monitor. Of course some companies choose to charge more and some less per license but the above estimates are a good industry standard snapshot.

We believe that Digital Signage should be something you should not have to spend an arm and a leg to acquire thus making it affordable for everyone.

Get some quotes from some of other guys and compare. We are sure you will be happy you ran into MediaSignage

Retail TV

The business and technology behind place-based broadcast networks in retail stores

Retail television networks arguably began in the 1970s, when several grocery retailers began showing pre-recorded advertising and informational content on in-store televisions. While the basic goals may be the same, today’s in-store TV networks enjoy several advantages over their predecessors, including nearly instantaneous content updates, schedules customized for each department, and robust proof-of-playback reporting.

 

When integrated into an existing cooperative (“co-op”) marketing program, a well-designed retail TV network can prove informative to consumers and lucrative for vendors and host stores alike. Most in-store TV solutions can be adapted to work with standard televisions or flat-screen monitors, and can utilize an existing or dedicated network for remote content delivery. Some of these products can also be used to manage other in-store devices, such as interactive kiosks.

The best-known provider of in-store media networks is arguably PRN, which handles everything from hanging the screens to selling the ad space. There are also hundreds of smaller players who represent variations on the basic theme, with many firms adopting a regional or vertical market-oriented focus. Some retailers have also created and managed their own networks, utilizing third parties as needed for the technology platform and logistics, while handling the ad sales themselves.

Retail TV networks are often used to display time and location-based promotions on various types of displays, such as plasma screens, LCDs, or even standard television monitors.

Digital Signage Jobs

Looking for a job. Do you know Adobe Flex / AIR ?
We currently hiring experienced Abode AS3 developers for our Digital Signage Software platform.

If you know your stuff contact us…

Digital Signage Player

When we first started developing our Digital Signage Player we had a few set of requirements. However after about two years in developemt and LOTS of brainstorming and re-coding its amazing how our predefiened set of requiremenrs had changed. Also, when we first started our development cyclce Adobe AIR was still in early beta release and we were not 100% sure of all of the API that will be exposed to us during the final release of the Adobe AIR platform.

With that said and after doing all of the ground work we came up with a few simple requirements concluding that the real challenge in Digital Signage Software is not the player but rather the back end.

If you think about it, the Digital Signage Player is what does the actual work and is what exposes your presentation to the captive audiance. And yet we spent over a year and a half developing the backend which realy ends up configuring a database which holds your sequence of resource play list and resource media and only 6 months developing the Digital Sinage Player software.

The main focus of our Digital Signage Player was stability. Making sure the Digital Signage Player can play and play and play. That is knows how to recover and that it is fully controlled remotely.

The backend required much more Sigange Software Design and execution.

We are happy with the final result and we are sure you will be too…

See you Oct 1 08.

Sean.

AIR vs WEB Digital Signage Player

We have received lots of questions on “The difference between our AIR and WEB Studio and player”

In short, AIRPlayer and AIRStudio require a quick installation and are desktop application versions.
WEBPlayer and WEBStudio do not require any installation and you can start using them without installing any special software on your PC.

If you are a serious Digital Signage user we recommend you use the AIR versions of out software apps.
WEBPlayer is a great way to embed you Signage in a web site.

However if you are gonna run a dedicated PC running Digital Signage you should use the AIRPlayer.
Also, for the AIRPlayer you get (1) free license. The WEBPlayer in unlimited licences.

If you have more questions please post on the Forum so we can help out…

Regards,

Sean.

MediaSignage completing Digital Signage Player testing

We have completed testing our first release of the Digital Signage Studio.
Currently all testing is focused on Stress Testing and validating the Digital Signage Player socket remote use.

Our C# backend had passed all stress tests with flying colors.

Hope to see you on Oct 1st for final public beta release.
Be sure to download the AIR versions of Digital Signage Player and Digital Signage studio once available on the download section of the site.

Regards,

Larry.

Free Digital Signage

Most of us had gotten used to Free Online services. We use free services which are very nice online web applications and sometimes don’t appreciate all that we are getting. Google Analytics, Free email, Free Box.net Storage, Free social networks, Free DocStok doc sharing, Free OpenDNS and more more more all FREE.

These companies provide great services and spend millions of dollars providing what we enjoy at no charge at all..

With that said and in this spirit Free Digital Signage is now also available from http://www.MediaSignage.com

Our services are free for the first 25MB of storage space. And we give you ALL functionality … no holds bar.

So here you go. Free is the future, Free is now and Free is MediaSignage.com FREE Narrowcasting services.

We hope you enjoy our service and hope to see you login on Oct 1, 08.

Sean.

Digital Signage is going strong….

General spending was down on most traditional media in the first quarter of 2008 but as you can see below, Oudoor advertising is performing well .( better than most other traditional media ) , and even maintained positive growth, says OAAA’s weekly newsletter Outdoor Outlook, citng Robert Coen’s July 2008 report on advertising expenditures. (OAAA is Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Inc. – NU).

First Quarter 2008
National Medium Percent Change
Outdoor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.0
Network TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Flat
Magazines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-1.5
Spot TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -3.0
Newspapers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -9.5
Spot Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-11.0
(Source: Outdoor Outlook)

So you can clearly see how strong narrowcasting is and the reason is simple. Digital Signage has direct effect on the bottom line and even in hard times, business owners simply don’t want to part from it.

Just my 2 cents.

Sean.