What is Digital Signage?
Digital Signage in Context. 
What Next?

A look at digital signage, its future direction, and the exciting next generation that is right on our doorstep. Will you move forward or be left behind? So let’s talk about it.

What is Digital Signage?

The term digital signage has become a generic term covering a multitude of sins. Originally it meant networked electronic displays, where the content was centrally managed and distributed over a network. It has come to mean anything displayed on an LCD or LED screen, whether the content is provided over a network or using a USB stick plugged directly into the display.
Digital signage is used for display advertising and promotional content in retail, replacing posters with electronic screens; content may be static, animated, or full video.
Displaying information to enable timely decision making is a particularly high-value use for digital signage. Transport, financial data, operational data – digital signage adds value, high value when well implemented.

Digital Signage in Context.

Digital signage is known as having beginnings in the retail environment, where the majority of digital signage products had there genesis. However, digital signage was well in use by the time retail stores started using it.

It actually started in the Financial Industry, in particular Stock Markets, and Banks with their Tickers. While the originals were analog, they were first to go digital and be software-driven with digital data. Doug Bannister was one of the first to develop this software. Doug is now CEO & CIO of Omnivex Corporation and heads the design of Omnivex software. Omnivex’ first software was a further development for Ticker use. Acquiring, managing and ‘pushing’ the data out was the paramount function.

When Plasma screens came along, the demands and opportunities grew, allowing the inclusion of graphs, charts, image files, and video in the content.

While other products were primarily to deliver media, Omnivex were already well developed in the use of data, with it’s greater complexity. Omnivex was able to do more with content across the board and became an industry benchmark.

To this day, Omnivex treats media, text, everything, as data, making for an extremely flexible, scalable and robust platform.

The next generations are going to be more flexible and relevant, and bring even more new functionality than ever before, and fantastic opportunities for those with the foresight to see them. Read on to learn more.

What next for Digital Signage?

Digital signage is ‘just a piece of the puzzle’.

As we morph from digital signage into Digital Communications, leading platforms such as Omnivex Moxie, and the next generation Omnivex Ink, become essential.

Digital Signage displays, whether they be large, medium, or small, will still be an essential piece of the puzzle as will be large LED displays and signs. However, as businesses need to extract the value hidden in data they store and generate, putting that information at your finger-tips will become more and more critical. Going mobile will be a necessity.

Displaying the information will not be enough, though, it must be bi-directional. Cross-linking to operational data and not only seeing, but also being able to respond; even as you prepare to board your plane, or maybe from halfway across the Pacific, anywhere. Two more pieces of the puzzle added; mobility and IoT.

What if, with the same platform, we can take the data, process it using some built-in algorithms that apply a few, or maybe many Rules and trigger certain actions to happen. Maybe warnings of imminent disaster or only thresholds have been broken and require immediate action. What if the actions required can be triggered by the same platform while displaying relevant warnings to the right people, in the right place, in real-time? Exciting possibilities and another piece of the puzzle added; AI.

So Digital Signage has become a piece, an essential piece of the puzzle that is Digital Communications. At the same time, in the background, there is far more to it than meets the eye.

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