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.
Is that interactive display a kiosk or is it a digital sign? The line separating the two is getting thinner, and it helps to create different definitions for each. Tim Burke, owner of Electronic Art, takes a stab at telling the two apart. Check out the article at: SelfService.org which describes several perspectives on the topic.
A few favorite technologies online in 2008 include Ustream.tv which easily enables you to stream video of events, web cams, etc. I first heard of them on the Today Show when some puppies were being shown on UStream in an attempt to find some people to adopt the dogs. Which worked, by the way. I like the concept for broadcasting seminars, product launches, night clubs, etc. for promotional reasons. Finding the use of this technology for our clients is sometimes easy, usually hard. So I’ll just share this fun use of the technology, a live web cam of a squirrel feeder at the north pole, Alaska. Imagine if your company sold squirrel food or feeders?
Other great technologies online include Twitter.com for micro-blogging & Word Press for blogs like the one you’re reading. I can remember back in the late 1990’s when myself and a team of developers would be building tools like this from scratch for clients! Now in the Web 2.0 world we can just bolt on and skin an existing well built, extensible and supported tool for a much lower cost. And it can be used for more than just blogging. Around each of these technologies other services and tools have erupted, like http://twist.flaptor.com/?tz=-5 , http://tweetburner.com , www.tweetscan.com/ or www.twilert.com/ .
Yammer.com is another tool that we like. We’ve begun to use it for internal communications as a replacement for some Email and some IM, much like an internal Twitter tool, but with features that make more sense for internal use.
Other tools I love include Adobe Air, Biometrics, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Multi-touch technology, and 3-D digital signage. Just to name a few. What are your favorite things? Comment below and share your favorites!
Google just announced that Event Tracking is now available for all profiles. Event Tracking allows you to track, AJAX elements, gadgets, file downloads, load times for data and most importantly flash elements and movies. One large drawback to using flash has been the inability to track how people interact with it. I expect that this coupled with Adobe’s improvements to the flash player should remove some of the barriers that have prevented developers and designers from using flash.
The debate continues, should I use an onscreen keyboard and save myself some hardware costs and have fewer things that can go wrong with my kiosk or interactive digital signage? The answer is: “Sometimes”.
I’ve covered this topic in the past on my Kiosk Blog and now you can watch a video interview of me discussing the topic at the KioskCom NYC 2008 trade show by going to http://www.selfservice.org where I am featured on the homepage, or the direct link to the article is at: http://www.selfservice.org/article_4457_25.php
Have a comment on this topic? Post it below or at SelfService.org’s site.
Charlie Brown and The Making of Agency Holiday Party Invitation. Yes, it can be like this in many agencies. Not here at Electronic Art, we kept it simple this year. An E-newsletter to most, and an E-invitation to our local office party / open house. But this fun video that has gone Viral in the past several weeks is a fun distration and a view into the psyche of agency folks.
Found a new Twitter alert tool that monitors Twitter posts for keywords you are interested in. So for example, I may want to see twitter posts about Kiosks, Digital Signage, or our company name, our client’s names or brands, etc. What a great little tool for monitoring buzz and those little blog posts we call Tweets. Nice tool guys! http://www.twilert.com/ Follow their founder at: http://twitter.com/danleach seems like a good guy.
New to Twitter? Think of it as a very short blog posting tool. You can post to it via the web, phone, email, sms, etc. It’s a fun way to keep up with your friends, co-workers, family, etc. and see what’s going on in their lives. For example, I follow Lance Armstrong which is fun, and Guy Kawasaki(who posts a lot!!) as well as many other people that I actually know personally. Sometimes the posts are about business, sometimes about what they are currently doing, or thinking, or noticing in the world around them. Some posts are pure silliness, but often there is much to learn or think about. This social networking tool can also broadcast your posts to your blog, Facebook, and many other social networking sites. I have a BlackBerry app that allows me to post on the fly. And www.TwitPic.comallows you to post pics that you want to Twitter about. By the way, when you post a message to Twitter, that is what is known as a “Tweet”. Some people Tweet way too much, and others only Tweet when they have something important to say. You choose who you want to “Follow” and can block those you don’t want to see your posts. We are even considering using a private Twitter account as an Internal communications tool inside of Electronic Art, as an alternative to email to keep our inboxes cleaner.
Do you Tweet? If so, comment with your Twitter page and let us know how to find you!
I decided this afternoon that I’ve neglected my adoring public (bwa-ha) too long. So, in good spirits I present to you- kiosk success stories from the field! While neither are Electronic Art projects, I think we can glean valuable lessons for future projects from these two kiosks. Case #1: a retail store kiosk for hair color product. For me, the magic of this kiosk was the placement and enclosure. It was very relevant, mounted on an end cap shelf right next to the product, not shoved off in a corner somewhere easily ignored. It was also very inviting and unobtrusive. The clear call to action grabbed my attention right away - not because I’m obsessed with kiosks, but because the designers made it very clear what the piece was meant to accomplish, and that human interaction was called for. So high marks to this project for placement and enclosure design. However, I couldn’t tell you without being there what product line the kiosk represented, because there was no branding on the enclosure, or even the software design (which was just a flat, white background with copy). While the application was straightforward and quickly accomplished its goal, I was hooked and wanted to do more - but alas there was no ‘more’. The lesson: placement - don’t hide your kiosk; intent - make it clear and inviting to passers by; design - simple and elegant, but beware of boring; and hook - utilize the opportunity to engage the user for a second touch later - invite them to sign up for email blasts or future promotions. Case #2: a convention center ‘concierge’ kiosk. Found in the lobby of a local convention center, this piece is noteworthy because of the smart utilization of the area around the actual kiosk. For this unit, the manufacturers not only used a smart enclosure - giving them opportunities for advertising, design appeal, and instructions on the base of the kiosk, maximizing impact. They also chose to use a digital sign placed above the kiosk to really pull people in with brightly colored ads and promotions of upcoming events and attractions. The footprint for this piece was pretty small and unobtrusive overall, but the people behind the project really utilized all of that small space very effectively. The lesson: you’re investing a lot in the project, make the most of your enclosure and the ‘free’ space around it.
Microsoft annouced that they will be updating their mobile browser to use the IE6 rendering engine. The IE6 rendering engine was released in 2001 and its support for standards is so bad that supporting it tends to add about 15% to the cost of website development.
