Nice article in Digital Signage Magazine this month on Content Management Software for 2015

I wrote a nice little article for this month's Digital Signage Magazine (December 2014 issue).

Here's the text.  Enjoy!

Digital Signage Content Management Software – A look to new features in 2015 and beyond

By Jeff Porter of Porter Digital Signage Consulting  (http://www.porterdigitalsignage.com)

New software for digital signage is being developed at a blazingly fast pace these days, fueled by innovations in hardware, display, servers, operating systems and “the Internet of things”.  It’s sometimes tough to keep up with everyone and everything, but as 2015 begins we wanted to give you some of the top highlights from some of the major players in the digital signage content management software space to watch for this year.

Scala is readying a new release in February, just in time for ISE and DSE announcements, of their next generation Enterprise Content Manager.  Major performance enhancements, simplified menus, a significantly improved search engine and better monitoring are in the offering for this release.  That means the web based GUI will be a lot quicker and more responsive, which is always a welcome improvement for productivity.  Scala’s Designer software is also getting some new graphical effects like alpha masks which will enable a much more creative control over multizone screen layouts (they don’t have to be just rectangular any more!).  Designer will also be able to connect more easily with various data sources and format the data more easily for an attractive dynamic experience. 

According to Clive Fort from Scala, there are five pillars of focus for their platform going forward: 

1.    1.      Data Integration: This is the key to dynamic digital signage.  Link that with real-time analysis and you’ve got the most relevant and timely information on your screens at all times.
2.      .      Interactive:  Engaging the viewer with an interactive experience (with relevant dynamic data) is key taking engagement and user experiences to the next level.
3.     .      Scale:  Every large network begins with a pilot.  And while it’s important to test your content strategy in pilot, it’s equally important to prove out all the technical pieces.  Scala’s platform is the same for both large and small networks. 
4.     .      Devices: There is an explosion of network connected devices these days.  Your platform needs to embrace a variety of different devices to engage the user at various touch points.
5.     .      Applications:  Not everything you need to do in digital signage is going to be turn key, so Scala believes that having a third party SDK and APIs is key to enabling new vertical markets with amazing applications.  Scala has a full website devoted to third party developers.

Existing customers on Scala Advantage will get all of these upgrades for free.  So it appears that the boys at Scala have been very busy.  A new release of their Android player is also expected, supporting some of the newest KitKat based Android players in Q1.

SignageLive has been working closely with the display manufacturers and media player companies to take full advantage of their roadmap.  Samsung and LG are both rolling out new “System on a Chip” (SOC) players that are built into the commercial LCD screens.  That means every screen can be IP addressable without the need for a separate media player, at least for basic digital signage content needs.  This will mark the third generation of embedded players with lower costs and higher performance for Samsung.  LG’s newly acquired WebOS platform (from Palm-Pre and HP Slate) is extending their Smart TV platform for digital signage.  Of course these standard screens can also be connected to a small “hang on the back” (or “stick”) media player.  

Folks like Seneca Data and iBase have wonderful little PC based players that most software platforms can work with.  But there is a new generation of Android based players coming out in Q1 2015 from folks like IAdea that is going to raise the bar significantly.  Quad core processors mean the performance is dramatically better than last year’s devices, and sometimes even come in a much smaller form factor, which can be much more cost effective than a PC based player.  SignageLive is also planning to release a new version of their software in 2015 with much improved monitoring and alerts.   They also see 2015 as the tipping point year for transition from Flash to HTML5.

Broadsign is keeping their 2015 plans under wraps, so you’ll need to sign up for their partner conference at DSE to find out the latest and greatest from them.  But in 2014, they did release version of Broadsign X 10.4 just in November 2014, so there’s quite a few nice things there that they recently added.  Users of their system will know they have two tools: Broadsign Administrator and Broadsign Creator.  Creator is for creating simple, quick and easy content for an end user with little to no training, as opposed to the Administrator product, which is more aimed at a network operator with technical skills and training.  With 10.4 you can easily view Creator content in Administrator without jumping between systems.  10.4 also includes a newly designed Calendar view for campaign management.  And a nice feature added is the ability to clone configurations.  Just copy something similar, and make a small tweak, instead of having to start over from scratch.  And for Creator, complex schedules are more easily managed from that interface without needing to jump into Administrator.  So there are enhancements to both software products to make each users’ experience better.

With Omnivex it’s all about the data.  That has been their strength for many years.  According to Omnivex’s Jeff Collard, he’s been noticing a shift in the attitudes of the CIO’s in large companies.  Today’s modern CIO is embracing technology innovations and bringing those solutions to their internal clients proactively (instead of trying to keep them at bay).  And it seems that hosting in the “cloud” is no longer a dirty word for many CIO’s.  Companies like Salesforce.com and Amazon (with their Amazon Web Services) have blazed the trail for acceptance within the corporate IT world.  And hosting in the cloud is amazingly cost effective these days, versus big iron servers that a company may need to own and maintain.  But Collard sees that there is a still a need for digital signage to be a “job” at a company.  “When you can get a degree in digital signage, and when that is viewed as a valid career choice (like being a webmaster), you’ll see a faster adoption rate in our industry.” Collard said.  He’s also seeing the opportunity for network consolidation in 2015, especially among larger advertising networks absorbing smaller “mom and pop” networks.  Collard was fairly optimistic for 2015 overall.  He did think that the economy in North America was much more receptive to digital signage solutions these days.

Stratacache’s new focus is to make it easier to plug into other systems.  Digital Signage is just one piece of the overall media mix is a company, and it’s important to be able to synchronize campaigns and allow for dynamic input from other system to drive the digital signage content.  Russ Young from Stratecache believes that the days of the “simple slide show digital signage” content are fading fast.  Clients are expecting data integration with their digital signage.   There have been a few deployments with gesture based digital signage, but it seems that touch is still the preferred method of interactivity.  

However, Young is bullish on a new beacon technology from SonicPing.net.  Stratecache have tested a lot of BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) devices, and the inaudible sonic beacons seem to work the best.  As soon as your sonic enabled mobile device gets within a close proximity and a specific dwell time of a beacon, content is triggered your smart phone based on your profile.  SonicPing’s platform is easily integrated with digital signage content management systems such as Stratecache’s ActiVia software.  You can expect to see a lot more mobile integration with digital signage in 2015.  

Young also posed the question, “Why don’t we see more voice recognition systems for interactive digital signage these days?”  That’s a very good question.  We have Siri on our iPhones, Microsoft Sync in Ford cars,  even Garmin GPS have voice recognition these days.  Perhaps that’s one more technology from Star Trek that we need to bring to life in digital signage, right after transparent aluminum and the transporter!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Porter is one of the industry’s leading experts in digital signage and is the founder of Porter Digital Signage Consulting.  From business planning, to sales and marketing and technology choices, Porter has been helping his clients get all the moving parts of digital signage in alignment for success.  Prior to heading his own consulting business, Mr. Porter was employed by Scala, Commodore, Bell Labs and Eastman Kodak.  Mr. Porter holds a BSEE from Purdue University and a MS from the University of Illinois.  He can be contacted at jeff@porterdigitalsignage.com or by phone 610-202-7676.