With the recent closing of ElectroGraph distributors our US distribution of Symbicon products was also gone.   We were contacted recently by the good folks in Finland at Symbicon LTD about becoming a new direct partner of their products here in the U.S.A.   They are interested in partners such as Electronic Art who can provide a complete custom solution and integration for customers.  So we are now negotiating a partnership with Symbicon LTD for their product line.

Symbicon has a great line of outdoor LCD enclosures that provide full environmental control.  Heat in the winter and cooling in the summer, super high bright screens for daylight readability and completely sealed and durable enclosures.   Many options are available such as integrated PC, Wifi, various finishes and more. Being from Finland, they build these to resist some very cold and harsh climates.  Many ski resorts in Europe and the USA use these products for outdoor marketing, wayfinding and promotion.  These units are super engineered and well made.   Electrograph had one in their booth at the DSE show in February 2009 which was huge!  Just what you need outside to message to large crowds.

See our Symbicon page for more details and spec PDF docs.

Informational screens at Helsinki mall

Outdoor 57inch LCD on Chicago train station

Symbicon outdoor LCD 57 inch in Saalbach

82 inch LCD in Austrian ski resort

While we’ve been selling, integrating and recommending Zebra printers in kiosks and self service solutions for years, we’ve finally joined their VAR partner program.  By partnering with Zebra we get access to many internal resources for marketing, support and new product development.

Kiosk Print Station shown as a grocery app.

We recently showcased the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station at our booth in KioskCom, Las Vegas 2009. It is an off the shelf printer enclosure for all in one kiosks or point of sale devices. The new product can be wall mounted or table top mounted to provide printing capabilities to your kiosk terminal in a very small footprint. Made by Zebra, who manufactures printers that are used in retail, POS, and many kiosks. We first saw the kiosk print station at the National Retail Federation show back in January (NRF in NYC) where Zebra was unveiling the new product.  I think this will be a big hit with applications such as gift registries, loyalty card programs, product locators and HR applications.  We have one at our office if you’d like to see one in person. And, those of you who subscribe to our E-Newsletter got a special promo price last month to kick it off!  Those of you who don’t subscribe should consider it to get monthly specials on hardware as well as brief information about recent projects and happenings at Electronic Art.

More details on the Zebra Kiosk Print Station are available in the kiosk section of our web site. And if you are looking for a kiosk enclosure that includes a printer, you know you’re in good hands with Zebra components!

The Kioskcom.com show last week was really good.  We were nervous going into it because of the economy.  We wondered if customers would come out to the show.  We were happy to see a great turn out by VP’s and decision makers with real projects in hand.  In years past you would see multiple team members from a brand attend, perhaps marketing folks, IT staff and VP’s.  Kind of a “design by committee” mentality. But this year, they seemed to not need to bring the whole committee out, just the decision makers, which all of the vendors appreciated.  We met with folks from Motorolla, Ikea, Target, Ceasars Palace, Delta, American Airlines and many more.

Our booth showcased the new Lobstr application on a 37″ touch screen, the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station with our “Hike & Bike” kiosk concept,  as well as our demo kiosk of various past customer implementations.  Our partners at 5Point also showcased Lobstr on their newest enclosure for Interactive Digital Signage (IDS) Platform, the Concierge.  Our app looked so cool on their 40″ screens that we are partnering with them to have this as our default hardware option for Lobstr. More to come on that soon.

Our booth chotsky was a full pack of Orbitz gum.  I figured it was better than most of the squeeze balls and pens given out by many vendors.  And also the obvious reason which is that I was tired of talking to people with bad breath.   Hmmm, I think Orbitz just found their next commercial idea!  Now if only I could brand the packaging with my company information it would have been perfect.

The educational break out sessions and tech talks were a big hit with attendees.  DT Research gave a session on “Interactive Digital Merchandising: Expanding brand and product impact and creating customer engagement.” which is a topic we can get behind.  Andrew Fischer did a great job in this session.   Another session was titled “Return on Message – Optimizing your digital signage network for success. ” which was giving by Keith Kelson who is the Chairman of the Content Best Practices committee of the Digital Signage Association along with Roger Sanford of the MediaTile company.  Return on Message (ROM) is the new buzzword in our industry and a methodology that  provides standards based processes to guide companies through complex variables that must be considered for a successful digital signage deployment.   This also showcased many of the best practices laid out by the association in the past years.

Speaking of the DSA (Digital Signage Association) of which I sit on the advisory board: we had our board meeting the night before the show at the M resort just south of the strip.  This new Casino / Hotel was only 62 days old and our board members were treated to a behind the scenes tour of the facility and the technology used by their VP of IT services.  I doubt I will ever get to see the NOC and security areas of another Casino in my lifetime, it was very interesting to see and learn about how they operate and how they use Digital Signage for both customer facing areas of the facility and also employee facing messages.  I appreciate the hospitality of the M Resort in Las Vegas.   During this meeting we did a review of several committees, discussed goals, events and recapped the past year’s success.  I am now the chairman of the PR & Marketing committee for the Digital Signage Association.   We have some good people on the committee already, so I’m excited about working with them to help promote the association, drive awareness and education, and help increase membership of the DSA.

As for new technology, there was a lot of the same hardware at the show that has been seen before.  I got a sneak peak at a new product from MicroVision which is a Pico Projector (ultra small projector) about the size of an Iphone.  Useful in our industry for some small digital signage applications for rear projection, etc.  However the brightness and resolution are the only current drawbacks I could see.  This may be addressed in the second and third generations of this unique laser projector called ShowWX.  See their site for a preview and watch for it to be launched later this year.  The projector is unique becuase of an ultra tiny red, blue & green laser that allows the image to be in focus at any distance.  It was really nice, but the first generation will likely be a consumer model.  They are interested in finding new products they could embed the engine into, such as a cell phone, or other device.

We enjoyed the opportunities to talk with many customers about their projects, hardware or software needs and to explain to them once again, that no… we are not THAT Electronic Arts company in California.   The “S” at the end of their name is short for dollar signs and no, our firm does not make games for the Playstation or Nintendo.   You have to love our name, but the similarities do make it confusing.  I’m pretty sure the lady at the Paris Casino was treating me really good because she thought that was our company when she saw my shirt.  For a free drink… I didn’t correct her.

It’s that time again, we are exhibiting at the KioskCom Self Service Expo in Las Vegas on May 6th & 7th, 2009. I think this is our 7th time exhibiting at the show which is in Vegas in the springtime and NYC in the fall. The show is packed with all of the vendors in the Kiosk and Digital Signage industry showing off their latest hardware, software, accessories and giving seminars and speeches. It’s a good show to attend to become familiar with the industry and what is available for your projects. Many of our vendors are there such as Zebra Printers, Site Kiosk, Scala, LG, Samsung and more.

We use the show to exhibit recent software apps and designs to show prospects the quality of work we can do and showcase new services or products. In this year’s booth we have a new digital signage way finding service targeted towards property managers, architects and developers called  Lobstr. This turnkey interactive office directory solution is a great way to attract new tenants, retain existing tenants, set your buildings apart from the competition and provide great service to your guests and visitors. A low cost enables the software and touch screen LCD panels to be installed quickly and easily. The booth demo will have a 37″ touch LCD mounted on a floor mount that enables you to rotate from landscape to portrait mode easily.

We are also showing the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station. The new product can be wall mounted or table top mounted to provide printing capabilities to your kiosk terminal in a very small footprint. Made by Zebra, who manufactures printers that are used in retail, POS, and many kiosks. As Zebra VAR partners we first saw the kiosk print station at the National Retail Federation show back in January (NRF in NYC).  I think this will be a big hit with applications such as gift registries, loyalty card programs, product locators and HR applications. Come see our booth #829 to see a demo. And, those of you who subscribe to our E-Newsletter get a special promo price this month to kick it off!

Also in our booth at the KioskCom tradeshow is the IBM AnyPlace kiosk showcasing some of our past kiosk applications from clients such as Verizon, Citrucel, Charbroil Grills, Os-Cal, BlackBerry and more. The IBM AnyPlace kiosk is a retail hardened all-in-one touch screen kiosk that has most of the features required for kiosk applications such as IR glass touch screen, Mag card reader, barcode scanner,  Wifi, built in precense sensor, stereo speakers, Express card slot for cellular broadband connectivity, and Windows XP embedded. The entire PC and screen are built in to one hardware component the size of a large laptop. This enables it to be wall , pole , desktop mounted or integrated into an enclosure. It truely can be mounted just about Any Place!  In the past we’ve combined it with various printers, mounted it on retail end-caps and even combined it with medical devices such as blood pressure cuffs, pedometers and weight scales to facilitate client needs. What can we do for you? Come see it at the KioskCom Self Service Expo.

If you are considering going to the show, post a comment below or let one of our staff know and we’ll be happy to send you free tickets good for free admission to the expo. The show management, JD Events, does a great job every year and we’ve seen the list of registered attendees. It should be another great show!

We have just deployed a customer loyalty kiosk for Central Market, a natural foods retail store by HEB grocer.  The kiosks allow their customers known as “foodies” to get rewarded for purchases they make and redeem the rewards for actual in-store credits known as “foodie cash”.  They can also enroll in the loyalty program or manage their account at the kiosks by swiping their loyalty cards.  The touch screen enabled kiosks are a result of Electronic Arts partnership with  AdPlex, a leading integrated marketing solutions provider who led the project.  Electronic Art provided the hardware and software to enable the total solution for the health conscious consumers.

Central Market has seven locations in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Plano, San Antonio and Southlake, Texas.  The Houston location is the first to receive the initial pilot kiosk units at it’s upscale location.

The Digital Signage Expo 2009 was described as “successful” by several retailers in attendance, according to event organizers. The conference and trade show at the Las Vegas convention center, which ran in February drew just over 3,000 attendees, down from last year’s 3,500, and 188 exhibitors, a record number. The trade show floor was 19 percent larger than 2008, with over 58,000 square feet of exhibitions.  I’ve attended this show for years and could not see all of the expo booths in the short time I was there.  But what I did see was great, so I’ll share with you some of my favorite items from the show. I was posting a lot of what I saw on Twitter that day and by the end my feet were sore and my eyes were bleeding from all of the signage.

We did not exhibit at this show due to time and budget constraints, but we will be exhibiting and speaking at the upcoming KioskCom.com  Self Service Expo May 6-7th, 2009, also in Las Vegas.  KioskCom has a broader audience of both kiosks and digital signage as many deployments utilize both technologies.  There is a lot of crossover in the two technologies, which is why agencies such as ours attend, since we offer solutions in both segments.  By the way,  I wish the show management would pick some others venues from time to time.  Seems like I’m always in Vegas and that town can wear you down.  But I digress.

The DSE show was much larger than the DSE east show in Philadelphia back in October 2008.  That event was very small and didn’t have much traffic.  Disappointing to everyone.  But the Vegas show always seems to be huge.  I went to Vegas early to attend the Digital Signage Association’s bi-annual advisory board meeting, of which I’ve been a member since the beginning.  We had some new board members from Target and Six Flags Inc..  who added to the lively discussions on how to improve the mission and structure of the organization.   It was good to see many of my peers in the industry and I was fortunate enough to share some drinks after with several of them.

Now for the review of the products and services I enjoyed at the show:
It was interesting to see the number of 3D screens from makers such as LG, Samsung, Phillips and others.  Everyone was trying to impress with this new variation of the medium.  Photos don’t do it justice but the effect can be really interesting.  Most people I spoke to think it is a bit of a fad or gimmick and are unhappy with the shallow viewing radius.  You also must be many feet away from the screen to get the effect and not make the eyes strain.  So this is not to be hung too close to the audience.   Another consideration is that the content must be rendered in 3D using tools such as Maya or 3D studio max.  It is often more costly and time consuming to produce content in 3D.   With that said, I think the early adopters will get a lot of buzz around their use of it, if done well.  And for many brands, this point of difference is worth the investment.   We hope some of our customers will consider the use of 3D when appropriate.

We met with and really like the Premier Mounts folks.  Their products incorporate a oval tubular design that gives their stands, wall mounts and ceiling mounts a upscale look.  Their easy to swivel mounts make switching between portrait and landscape modes very easy.  Check them out online at www.Mounts.com .  These guys can fabricate just about any metal mounting need you may have.

The good folks at Tightrope had a very yellow booth and were showcasing their content management tools.  We’ve never used their products but I enjoy their Twitter posts about the industry.  As I was driving to Vegas from California I was keeping up with them and several other DSE attendees. At these events there are literally dozens of management products.  Most very good, each with their own unique spin.  We are VARS for several as some are better for certain campaigns then others.  We saw our partners Scala at the show, as well as Stinova, Wirespring and Web DT.  Stinova was showing off their web based management tools which we like very much for the middle market.  This German based firm is now making headway in the USA with VARs such as Electronic Art.   Web DT have really good thin client players that we resell and they’ve made some good improvements to their software.  They also have a nice app we can offer our clients that you’ve probably seen which allows for triggers to play content.  For example if you pick up a cell phone in a wireless store, it triggers the tool to play content on screen about that particular phone device.   By utilizing this tool, we can deploy this solution much faster than building from scratch and can focus more on the content being provided.  We are excited about offering this tool and will have more details to share soon.

The guys at SpaceNet provide satellite networks for digital signage and kiosks.  They provide the network for Shell Gas & C-stores for the video content at the pump.  This solution broadcasts a variety of media (news, ads, TV shows) via multicast enabling both local and national media/ads with day parting.  Integrating this solution could also provide a retailer with a backup network should a store network ever go down.  Great idea and cool technology!

Another product which we use here at Electronic Art that was seen at DSE is LogMeIn.  This remote management tool goes way beyond remote desktop or VNC.  It provides a unique web based remoting tool that enables providers such as ourselves to help maintain remote systems, do file transfers, remote printing and even mini-meetings like WebEX.  The new product from them that I like is the LogMeIn Embedded product.  It supports the Windows XP Embedded OS found on many kiosks and digital signage players, and enables a one-to-many centralized management interface that can allow us to work in the background while users are still interacting with Kiosks or signage.  All with an 256-bit SSL encryption.  This tool is awesome.

GestureTek was back this year showing off their multi-touch table hardware.  This is similar to Microsoft Surface and their product along with many others are starting to show up in retail and hospitality.  While I liked the hardware and overall concept, the WW2 Tank game they showcased didn’t respond very well.  I was disappointed in the multi-user game that wouldn’t allow me to change direction of the tank.  Not sure why, but I’m sure it was due to being in a trade show environment.  Things go wrong.   But GestureTek has been around for a long time. I first saw them at a kiosk show in Orlando back in 2004 where they showed off the AirPoint system.  It’s good to see they are still in the marketplace and innovating.

At Electronic Art we offer a lot of commercial LCD screen options, and each were present at the show such as LG, Samsung, Phillips, and more.  But a unique screen provider that we really like is Tek Panel.  They have military grade screens with built in player PC’s and are available with touch screens.  We are big proponents of interactive digital signage to allow your customers to touch your digital signage and be ultimately measurable.  Their new thin bezel hardware enables us to give you an all-in-one signage solution much like our IBM AnyPlace kiosks are an all-in-one kiosk system.  Too often with other screens we have to have a touch overlay put onto a client’s screen, but this system is ready to go out of the box and makes for a really clean installation.  Contact us for pricing.

We also saw our new large format outdoor signage hardware at the show.  Symbicon is based in Finland and makes a really nice system with built-in HVAC to keep the enclosure warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  It is water tight with built in PC and great for retail, ski resorts and more.  This sign is impressive and built to take the brutal outdoor environment that most signs just cannot live in.  Contact our sales staff for an introduction and pricing.

A much smaller screen that we liked is the AdView DM10i Smart Sign.  This retail onshelf player allows for a low cost and easy to deploy video player.  We really like the 10.4″ LCD display and multi-level drill down menus to select up to 80 different video files. It supports Mpeg, Jpeg and MP3 file formats and has a replaceable custom frame.  It even records which keys were pressed most and can export to a USB format in Excel format for a simple reporting interface.  Let us know if you’d like a demo of this really nice retail shelf talk solution.

One of my favorite items was the projection touch signage from Brain.  This film enables us to project either traditional passive content onto a glass storefront window, or provide an interactive touch film to the window to allow guests to search through interactive catalogs after hours, view specials and coupons, or play a branded game.  All through the exterior of the glass, though the film is applied to the inside of the glass.   They were showing that even with a low cost project ($600) you can get a good quality projection onto their product.  Even better with a higher quality projector, obviously, but the projectors they used were great. This is also a way to enable a multi-touch screen as described above for GestureTek.  But this enables us to fabricate a custom enclosure or simply use your existing window and contour cut the film to any shape you like.  In many ways it is better than a plasma screen! It is available in up to a 145″ diagonal size, as a wide viewing angle and is even good in high ambient light environments.  We were so impressed that we are setting up a reseller relationship to begin to offer this product to your company.

I enjoyed catching up with some old friends so I’ll give a shout out to Ed Crowley formerly of 5Point now with OneSource, Dick Trask formerly of Scala now with StarMount,  Linda Hofflander of Wireless Ronin, Tom Nix of Dynamax, Mike Honkomp formerly with ESP now with DigiKomp, Bill Gerba & Michael Smith at Wirespring,  Jimmy Dun of DynaSign, Bob Fincher and all of the guys at Networld Alliance, and Margo Meyers formerly with the USPS and now consulting in our industry. She is a great resource and has been on the user side of interactive for years.  I enjoyed my time with each of you, even those of you who are my competitors.   It’s good to see a class act like you helping to grow our industry.

The Pink Ribbon Girls is an organization for young women with breast cancer. We’ve been working with them on their website for almost 4 years now. Over that time we’ve added a lot of features in the member area but when it came time to add a whole new section for volunteers (AKA The Pink Ribbon Gang) it was decided that we needed to make a few tweaks to how pages were laid out.

One of the biggest changes was width. Since we first designed the site the average user’s screen size has increased from 800×600 to 1024×768. This gives us a lot more room and the ability to display things across the horizontal without it looking too cluttered.

We also streamlined the sign-in process, added a blog, and a whole section to keep family members and friends in the loop.

Has it been a while since your website was last refreshed? Contact us for a quote.

We wanted to let you know that Electronic Art has launched a first of its kind social networking sweepstakes service named Twit2Win.  The service allows brands to target the growing audience on social networks with sweepstakes to promote their brand and grow their presence with the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and many other platforms.  A new sweepstakes is started weekly to provide a continual reason for the loyal followers to return to the site and enter the branded sweepstakes and win free prizes.  It is an opportunity to expose your brand by allowing the entrants to share the sweepstakes within their own social circle of friends.  This can grow exponentially!

Although sharing by the consumer is totally up to them, this is not something you can expect to “control”.  If your sweeps prize or your brand message is interesting, they will share it.  Some marketers have a hard time with giving up control, but with social media, that is exactly what you have to do.

So, how might your company use this service? Some brands have a global reach and their products or services are universal. Giving away one or several of your products is a great way to promote your brand and also gain lead generation from the entrants to the sweepstakes.  Other companies may not have a product to give away such as a non-profit or charity, but they can still participate by providing highly sought after consumer goods such as Ipods, HDTV’s, vacations or other similar items.  For a small fee, Twit2Win brands the main web site for the duration of the sweepstakes with the sponsor’s logos and imagery and provides many link back services to the sponsor’s web sites or presence on Twitter, Facebook, etc..  We can help your brand grow its social media presence or simply help provide the lead generation services you desire. There are many other services available and the innovative team at Electronic Art can consult with your team to craft a targeted campaign. If your brand or agency would like to participate, contact us for details.  We are making it really low cost initially to show you how great this can be for your brand.

In the short time since our launch in mid January 2009 we have really grown our following of people who read the micro-blog postings each day.  The prizes have included ipods, Obama Hope posters during the inauguration week, and a family membership to a museum.  That museum saw a 45% increase in the people who now follow their blog postings during that sweepstakes.  Interestingly, it also grew dramatically in the weeks following the sweepstakes as people continued to share. They now have a larger audience of people reading their blogs and visiting their web site daily.

Twit2Win continues to grow and offer additional services across more platforms.  Twit2Win advertises and draws traffic from Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other grass roots marketing methods.  Our blogging professionals promote the sweepstakes on Twitter and multiple other social networking sites such as Facebook, Friend Finder and other sites to drive traffic and generate sweepstakes entries. The growth in a short amount of time shows the popularity of the sweepstakes in this unique channel. We expect our growth to be huge in 2009 as each of these platforms continue to add new users.

Things people are saying

On Twitter, people send “Tweets” or posts to their personal network about things they are thinking about or that they find interesting.  Here are a few posts about the Twit2Win service on Twitter:

joeyTWOwheels @twit2win should be recognized as a good way to build followers. 1:11 PM Jan 31st from web

anexemines @kmesiab , ppl getting clever w/ twitter sweepstake ideas: http://twit2win.com/ 9:44 PM Jan 28th from TweetDeck

So follow us on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/Twit2Win and watch for our tweets on cool Tweetstakes from great brands that “get” social media.  Reward your customers, authenticate your brand and gain new socially aware advocates!

Links to articles on Twitter and Social Media

New to Twitter and social media, here are some articles to help.

• The Top 20 Social Networks of 2008
• 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
• Twitter’s Massive 2008: 752 Percent Growth

Scala, provider of end-to-end solutions for the advertising management and digital signage markets, announced that it has released Release version 4 of its Scala5 connected signage software to its customers known as InfoChannel.

Scala’s Research and Development team has expanded since the last release with new resources in the U.S. and in India. The R&D team has also adopted a stronger development methodology for product releases. The growth of the team and the new methodology allowed Scala to announce Release 4 on time and with more features than originally anticipated.

The highlights of Release 4 are:

• Web Services for Content Manager: allow third-party applications to interface with the Scala Content Manager functionality
• Ad Manager Tie-In to Content Manager via Web Services: the first phase of integration of Scala Ad Manager with Scala Content Manager
• Playback Audit EX Module: the new module generates proof-of-play reports showing what media played where, when and how often
• Media Playback Controls: including “playlist shuffle,” “play N times” from a playlist and “play fullscreen”
• Time Triggers: added to trigger a playlist at specific times or regular intervals.
• Scala Designer more Photoshop friendly: Ars Media Photoshop Plug-in has been added to convert Photoshop layered elements to ScalaScript
• Adobe Flash support has been greatly enhanced to provide smoother, faster, high-quality playback including interactive support, alpha channel and “FlashVars”

Electronic Art will be providing upgrade assistance to our Scala clients and performing the upgrade for those of our customers that we directly provide the service.  This upgrade will bring your systems up to the latest versions.

Looking for digital signage solutions, Scala is a great enterprise wide system for large networks or systems that need to integrate with a lot of proprietary 3rd party data.   Other tools are also available for smaller networks or single screens.  Contact us to find out more information.

Electronic Art has recently added Scala digital signage software to it’s list of products available to our clients.  As a Scala InfoChannel Value Added Reseller we can provide Scala licensing, software, installation and support in addition to the digital signage content we provide.  Scala approved player hardware is also available in addition to the multiple LCD vendors we resell such as LG, Samsung & Phillips.

InfoChannel is Scala’s digital signage management suite that provides enterprise level features and scalability for large and medium size installations.  InfoChannel provides the ability to collaboratively create, publish, schedule and centrally control media-rich content that can be delivered and dynamically localised at the point of playback to one or thousands of networked displays . As the leader in Dynamic Digital Signage solutions since 1987, the technology has field-proven scalability and 24/7 reliability.

The above image is a simplified version of a typical signage network using Scala InfoChannel tools to manage content provided by Electronic Art.  If you don’t already have a management tool for your digital signage, contact Electronic Art to determine if Scala is right for your digital signage network and see how we can provide rich messaging for your digital signage network.