implications of mobile trends on digital signage

8/7/2019 Implications of Mobile Trends on Digital Signage

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Trends In Mobility

and the Implicationson Digital Signage



White Paper: Trends in Mobility and the Implications on Digital Signage

Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Mobile Voice - The First Mobile Revolution ............................................... 2

Personal Productivity - The Second Revolution ........................................ 3

Personal Impact - The Third Revolution .................................................... 5

Mobility’s Impact on Digital Signage ........................................................ 9

What’s to Come .......................................................................................... 11

Summary ..................................................................................................... 12

About The Author ....................................................................................... 13




1

Introduction

It could be said that digital signage is a twenty-first century

technology whose value can only be truly quantified by using 1950’s

measurement methodologies. The great paradox of digital signage is

this: In today’s signage networks, content is designed using

sophisticated software; managed through intricate scheduling

systems; delivered over sophisticated networks; run on

technologically advanced media players; presented on state-of-the-

art monitors; to be seen and acted upon by? . . . well, your guess is as

good as mine!

In an age where Internet advertisers can target and measure

audiences with exacting detail, the best a digital signage network operator can typically do is to determine whether or not someone

looked at the screen. If a signage operator wants any details

beyond that, surveys and questionnaires must be employed – a

throw-back to the 1950s.

Sure, one may be tempted to propose a scenario wherein an

operator could tie their digital signage system into a point-of-sale or

inventory system and then apply sophisticated analytic models to

quantify the business impact of signage viewership. Possible-yes; but

not an easy model to scale due to the extensive skills and resources

required to pull it off. One may also be tempted to point out that

viewership can be quantified via visual recognition systems that can

tell an operator/advertiser the sex and approximate age of a viewer.

This is true, but unfortunately, few, if any, recognition systems can tell

the operator/advertiser whether the content prompted a response

and then go on to quantify the business impact of the resulting

response. This is a big problem. Just look at the newspaper industry.Centuries-old journalistic icons are closing their doors because they

cannot measure who views and then acts upon their ads. Gone are

the days when rough approximations of viewership were satisfactory.

Does this then foretell of a potentially limited future for digital

signage? The logical conclusion would have to be, ―yes‖ — u nless…

It could be said that digital signage is a twenty-first century

technology whose value can onlybe truly quantified by using 1950’s

measurement methodologies.




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―Unless what?‖ Unless the same systems that design, manage, and

deliver content to the digital signage can also track what viewers do

in response to a call to action . ―How is this possible?‖ One potential

scenario would suggest that viewer tracking, including call-to-action

monitoring, can be achieved by marrying digital signage content

management systems with emerging mobile technologies.

It is clear that rapidly evolving trends in mobile communications are

facilitating the aforementioned convergence of digital signage with

mobile technologies. However, before one can understand the

significance of these trends and the implications on digital signage,

one has to look back and understand the history of modern mobile

communications before one can look forward.

Mobile Voice - The First Mobile Revolution

Over thirty-five years ago in 1973, the first cellular telephone call was

made by Martin Cooper of Motorola to engineers at Bell Labs. This

call ushered in the beginning of a revolution – a revolution in which

the average consumer could communicate without wires. Ten years

later in 1983, Motorola released the 16-ounce DynaTAC cell phone

(affectionately known as ―the brick‖) , which marked the beginning of

truly portable mobile communications.

Between 1983 and 1989 wireless carriers focused on building out their

networks and adding subscribers. As they did so, the price of ―talk

time‖ began to drop. As the prices came down, more people

purchased cellular service, and by 1990 there were one million

cellular subscribers. It is interesting to note however, that although it

took over 17 years for the U.S. cellular industry to reach its first one

million subscribers; today ’s global market adds over one million

subscribers in less than a day .

In the late eighties, telecom engineers began working on new

network technologies that would vastly increase the number of

subscribers that could simultaneously use a network. This

development would go on to further reduce the cost of cellular

service, and would also help to enable wireless carriers to offer new

The first cellular phone call in 1973ushered in a communications revolution. Recent trends inmobile communications areushering in a revolution in the

convergence of mobility anddigital signage.




3

capabilities to enhance the mobile communications experience for

their subscribers.

By the early nineties, telecom engineers were testing the second

generation of mobile networks. The first generation network was

based upon analog, circuit switched technologies; while this second

generation was based upon digital technologies. It was significant

that these new digital networks offered the promise of allowing users

to communicate data as well as voice. In fact, in 1992 the first text

message was sent to demonstrate the data capability of these new

digital networks.

It became clear in the early nineties that these new networks would

need additional wireless spectrum to accommodate the increasingnumber of subscribers and the full range of anticipated services. The

US Congress, recognizing a money-making opportunity, passed

legislation to allow the FCC to hold auctions to sell wireless spectrum

to existing carriers as well as new entrants. So in 1995, the first of

many wireless spectrum auctions was conducted. The US Treasury

raked in billions of dollars for what up until then had been given

away. Hundreds of new would-be telecom carriers sprang up

virtually overnight. It was now a 20 th century gold rush and the

beginning of the second major revolution in mobility.

Personal Productivity – The Second Revolution

By 1996, a plethora of new wireless carriers had become actively

engaged in building out second generation networks. At the same

time, a company out of California named US Robotics, was bringing

to market what was to become the first commercially viable PDA – a

trend-setting device known as the Palm Pilot. Although not the first

PDA, (early entrants included the Apple Newton, the Motorola Envoy,

etc), the Palm Pilot became the first commercially successful PDA.

Concurrent with the release of the Palm, the Internet and email were

beginning to increase in popularity. By the late nineties, a broad

array of companies were beginning to actively look at merging

wireless connectivity with PDAs – mostly as email appliances.

By the late nineties, a broad arrayof companies were beginning toactively look at merging wireless

connectivity with PDA’s.




4

1999 marked a milestone year in mobile communications. Palm

introduced the Palm VII wireless PDA, Research in Motion (RIM)

introduced the first Blackberry, and one of the first on-line mobile

application stores, Palm Market (now Handango), was introduced.

Twenty-six years after the first cell phone call, and four years after the

first wireless auction, people were sending text messages, checking

their email wirelessly, updating their calendars and downloading

applications. The pace of change was rapidly accelerating.

The new century started with a bang! The number of U.S. cellular

subscribers reached 100 million. By 2001, the first truly recognizable

―convergent device‖ hit the market – the Handspring Treo 180. A

device was considered ― convergent ‖ if it had cellular phone

capabilities coupled with email and PDA functionality all in one unit.

These convergent devices subsequently became known as

―smartphones.‖ (NOTE: Other manufacturers such as Nokia, Kyocera,

etc. had produced convergent devices ahead of to the Treo, but

Handspring was the first to make broad commercial inroads primarily

due to consumer familiarity with the Palm operating system on which

the Treo was based.)

Soon after the launch of the second generation networks, engineers

began actively working on the third generation (3G) of wireless

networks. These 3G networks were being engineered to support high-

speed, broadband data. This emphasis on data was viewed as

critical since it was universally believed that mobile email and mobile

Web users would ultimately develop insatiable appetites for

bandwidth.

2002 stood witness to the build-out of the first third-generation

network. Concurrent with the 3G build-out, handset manufacturerssuch as Handspring and RIM, were further strengthening their

positions as leaders in the emerging smartphone segment.

Handspring’s Treo 600 series quickly became a category leader in

consumer-oriented convergent devices and RIM ’s line of Blackberry

units was setting a standard as the preferred mobile email platform

1999 marked a milestone year inmobile communications. Palm

introduced the Palm VII wireless PDA,Research in Motion (RIM) introduced

the first Blackberry and one of the firston-line mobile application stores,Palm Market, was introduced




5

for corporations. It should be noted that i t wasn’t long after the

launch of the first Treo that RIM infused voice into the Blackberry.

By 2005, U.S. cellular subscriber ranks had risen to 145 million. Text

messaging was beginning to rapidly grow, more handsets were

becoming 3G capable, and the smartphone segment was steadily

taking hold. The real change however came in 2007 when Apple, in

conjunction with AT&T, introduced the iPhone. This event marked the

beginning of the third revolution in mobility, and the harbinger of the

future for true digital signage/mobile device convergence.

Personal Impact - The Third Revolution

Prior to 2007 and the launch of the iPhone, wireless carriers generally

sought to control nearly everything that touched their networks. They

attempted to control the devices that went on their networks, the

applications that ran on their networks, the way the devices

accessed the networks, etc. One may ask why the carriers sought to

exercise such control. The answer is simple. The wireless carriers were

not about to repeat the mistakes of the inter-exchange carriers (i.e.,

the long distance companies) who from the late eighties through to

the early 2000 ’s, watched their revenues plummet as they became

nothing more than a ―pipe‖ for carrying v oice and data traffic at the

lowest possible price.

The Apple/AT&T alliance however changed everything. AT&T was

now allowing an outsider (Apple) to place a device on their network

that had near-unbridled access to the network and could do

everything from downloading content to mapping a user ’s location .

Things changed further in the summer of 2008 when Apple

announced the iTunes app store. Suddenly, seamless access to

content, to applications and all of the things that the applications

could do were now clearly in the domain of those besides the

carriers.

What prompted the change? The answer again is simple. It was a

matter of economics. From the very start of the cellular industry, a

carrier’s market value was determined by the number of net new

The introduction of the AppleiPhone in 2007 marked the

beginning of the third revolution in mobility – thePersonal Impact Revolution.




6

subscribers that they added to their networks and the average

revenue that they derived from each subscriber. By 2007, especially

in the US, cellular penetration was reaching a point of near

saturation. As the market became more saturated and the carriers

began battling for a smaller pool of eligible customers, the price for

cellular service began to drop. As the price dropped, the average

revenue per subscriber began to decrease. It was clear that unless

revenue-per-subscriber could be driven back up, the carrier

valuations would decline as well. The answer as it turned out was ―in

the data‖.

In the thirty-plus years that the carriers controlled the networks, it

could be argued that rapid, break-through innovation on the

subscriber side of the equation had never been the carriers’ strong

suit. It cannot be known for sure, but one could speculate that the

carriers (particularly AT&T) finally recognized that if they were going

to dramatically increase data usage, they would need to ―let the

genie out of the bottle‖ — become ―pipe- like‖ and put innovation

into the hands of those who do it best. As it turned out, this was a

brilliant move – if, of course, this was their original intent.

As the iPhone set new standards in handset functionality and

application/network integration, data usage and average revenue

per user began to increase dramatically. AT&T’s subscriber roll s also

began to increase as the iPhone began to lure subscribers from other

networks. It was clear that consumers were gravitating to a new

usage-model in which the cell phone was more than just a

communications platform or utilitarian office device.

The evidence of this new cellular usage model could be easily seen

by examining the rapidity in which mobile applications had begun toplay a larger role in people’s lives . For example, between the late

1990’s and 2007, the users of mobile banking application totaled

about 400 thousand. After the 2008 launch of the iPhone app store,

the ranks of mobile banking users had swollen to nearly 4 million.

The increasing interest in mobile applications could be further seen as

the number of application downloads increased dramatically. As

It was clear that

consumers were

gravitating to new

usage-model in

which the cell phone

was more than just acommunications

platform.




7

noted earlier, one of the first app stores came on line in the late

1990’s. In the nearly 10 years leading up to the 2008 launch of

Apple ’s iTunes app store, it has been estimated that less than 300

million smartphone applications had been downloaded – and that’s

for all carriers and all phone manufacturers. In the 10 months

following the launch of the Apple iTunes app store, over 1 billion

applications were downloaded – and that’s primarily for one

manufacturer’s (Apple’s) products.

So in terms of mobility’s third revolution , the iPhone, in less than two

years, has played a major role in facilitating a new way for people to

manage their lives. This represents an unprecedented pace of

change when compared to other events in the history of mobility.

Other carriers and device manufacturers who have stood witness to

this rapid change have begun to work feverishly to copy the

ingredients that have allowed AT&T, Apple and the iPhone to

redefine the rules:

1. Sophisticated handsets with the following features:

a. Multi-media Friendly Form Factor – A large, vivid screen with

touch attributes

b. Content Orientation – Content, including applications, as a

means to differentiate each experience

c. Application Interoperable – Applications that can leverage

functions of other applications

d. Commerce Centric – Tailored for mobile purchases of content

and other items

e. Location Aware – Allows applications to utilize a user’s

geographic position for making content more relevant

f.

WAN/LAN/PAN Enabled – Near ubiquitous access viapersonal, local and wide-area wireless network technologies

g. Desktop/Cloud Integrate – Leverage of content across many

platforms via information stored in centrally managed servers

In the 10 months

following the launch

of the Apple iTunes

app store, over 1

billion applications

were downloaded.




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2. A change in the carrier business model as manifest by a

willingness of the carriers to:

a. Step out of the way and let others manage innovation

b. Let network management disciplines serve as the primary

differentiator

c. Let network speed and scope serve as a supporting

differentiator

3. A large pool of innovative application developers creating for a

broad array of mobile app stores:

a. iTunes Application Store

b. Microsoft Mobile Marketplace

c. RIM/Blackberry App World

d. Nokia Ovi

e. Google Android App Store

f. Etc.

Thanks in large part to the Apple/AT&T alliance, the mobile phone

has become a platform for managing one’s life. Gone are the days

when the cell phone was used exclusively to talk, send emails and

text message. The third revolution mobile model will be focused on:

Mobile Commerce: The purchase of applications, digital content,

event tickets, etc.

Mobile Lifestyle: Health & wellness monitoring, personal finance

administration, education, etc

Mobile Entertainment: Music, videos, games, puzzles, books, etc.




9

Mobility’s Impact on Digital Signage

Now that we have a common understanding of the history of mobility

and its future course of direction, let us look at where mobile/signage

convergence started and where it is going. Until about 2005, there

was very little linkage between digital signage and mobility.

However, as text message utilization began to grow, some of themore innovative digital signage operators started integrating SMS-

based calls-to-action into their signage content. In this SMS-based

model, a message is shown on the digital display that invites viewers

to text a code or keyword to a five digit SMS short code. Once the

viewer sends the code, then they then receive additional information

on their phone.

Unfortunately, SMS-based convergence, although very effective at

connecting consumers to signage, has yet to be widely deployed.One of the likely reasons for this is the added complexity connected

with managing Short Codes, managing the marketing programs and

managing utilization tracking. Perhaps another reason for lack of

mass adoption is the potential cost to viewers. Although many

cellular customers subscribe to plans that offer unlimited messages for

a fixed price, many consumers still pay for text messages on a per-




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transaction basis. Regardless of the impediments to mass

acceptance, SMS will continue to play a role in

convergence, but it will likely not be a major factor on a

large scale.

When one looks beyond SMS to the next level of

convergence, one has to consider the new ―personal

impact‖ model spawned by Apple and the iPhone. The

next level of convergence will need to make a seamless

connection between the individual’s multi -media

smartphone, their location, and the content that is

relevant to a point in time.

There are many possible scenarios as to how the personal impactmodel will affect convergence. Four likely scenarios are as follows:

Scenario 1 – Signage Promotes Applications

This scenario assumes that special purpose smartphone applications

will be written to enhance the visit experience to a venue and the

digital signage will promote the existence of the applications and

encourage signage viewers to download the applications. For

example, signage in a cookware department may encourage

patrons to download a special cookbook that contains recipes

tailored specifically for that store’s particular cookware.

Scenario 2 – Signage Promotes a Web Connection

This scenario assumes that special purpose mobile web sites will be

written to augment content presented on the digital signage. For

example, a consumer/patron/guest enters a venue where they are

presented high-level information on the digital signage. The signage

then refers them to a mobile web site for more detailed information

and interactive opportunities.

Scenario 3 – Signage Promotes Geo-Tagged Content

This scenario assumes that content within an existing or potentially

new geo-tagging application is extended to include information

relevant to a location(s) where digital signage is installed. For

Due to its growing adoption, textmessaging will continue to play a

role in convergence.




11

example, signage could encourage people to launch their geo-

tagging application on their smartphone to view more information

about what is being presented on the screen. NOTE: A geo-tagging

application uses the GPS capabilities of a mobile handset to link the

device’s longitude and latitude coordinates to specific content.

Scenario 4 – Signage Content and the Mobile Handset Work In

Harmony

This scenario assumes that the same content management system

that directs digital assets to the digital signage also directs content to

the handset. It assumes further that there is a tight linkage between

what the viewer sees on the screen and what appears on their

handset. For example, the signage presents its message and theninvites viewers to use their mobile phone to view more information

pertaining to the message. Both messages – those presented on the

digital signage screen and the mobile device – are supplied by same

content management system. The message and the digital assets

are tightly integrated.

What’s to Come

The evidence suggests that innovation will flourish over the next two

years just as it has over the past two. Since it is very difficult to predict

the winners in a rapidly changing game, it is not easy to say which

convergent scenario will become the most dominant. It is however a

safe bet to put your confidence in any convergent technology that

leverages one content management system to design, schedule and

deliver content to both the handset and to the big screen

simultaneously. A single content management system that directs

content to both the mobile device and the big screen provides many

advantages. Digital assets can be leveraged across platforms, the

accounting of content delivery can be managed as one process

and integration of messages can be optimized for cross-platform

delivery – meaning content on the wall can be static while the

content on the mobile device can be dynamic and interactive.




12

Summary

Although cellular technology has been in existence for over 35 years,

it is just starting to hit the vertical slope of its growth path. Carrier

business models, network technology, application technology, and

handset capabilities have now matured to the point that cellular

handsets are becoming crucial for all dimensions of an individual’s

life. These technological advancements have further enhanced the

mobile handset’s ability to integrate with more mature techn ologies

such as digital signage. The convergence of digital signage withsmartphones will enable digital signage operators to actively monitor

viewership, and at the same time, help shape the viewership

experience on a personal level.

**********




About The Author

Steve Gurley is the Vice President of Marketing and Business

Development for Symon Communications, Inc., an industry leading

digital signage and visual communications solutions company. Prior

to joining Symon, Steve spent eight years as the CEO of Pyrim

Technologies, Inc., a mobility-focused business development firm that

he founded in 2000. Before founding Pyrim, Steve was with Electronic

Data Systems (EDS) where he held executive positions in business

development and sales and was responsible for growing EDS’

business within the wireless industry throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Mr. Gurley was also responsible for founding and overseeing EDS’s

wireless data and mobile solutions consulting practice.

You can follow Steve’s views on mobile trends as well as his

observations on the convergence of mobile communications and

digital signage by visiting his blog at www.steve-gurley.com. You can

also follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/steve_gurley. If you

would like to see the latest convergent innovation with which Steve

has been associated, please visit www.symon.com/future.shtml.

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