Episodes
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
Rich Ventura, NEC Display, on ALP
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
NEC Display has been fairly quietly involved in analytics for a long time now, but it just got very serious and noisy about that capability, with the launch of something called ALP - which is short for Analytics Learning Platform.
It's a retail intelligence program that uses cameras and other sensors, AI, big data, cloud computing and network appliances to give retailers a better sense of what's going on in their stores.
Tied to digital signage, a retail intelligence platform can optimize messaging based on who's in there, how long they're in there, and the historical patterns of what those people tend to buy. The gold for retail operators is understanding conversion ratios - the what really happened stuff when messages were pushed.
There is no shortage of retail intelligence platforms out there, but none that I know of built from the ground up with signage as a core element. I spoke with NEC's Rich Ventura, who drove the project, to talk about ALP's roots, how people in the signage ecosystem plug in, and how it all fits.
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Wednesday Sep 20, 2017
David Labuskes, AVIXA
Wednesday Sep 20, 2017
Wednesday Sep 20, 2017
I was in the Washington, DC area last week for what turned out to be the rebranding of Infocomm as AVIXA - a loose acronym for the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association.
The trade association had invited me, and a pile of other trade journalists, for a press conference and follow-ups about … something. They wouldn’t say what and had us signing NDAs promising we wouldn’t spill the beans ahead of time.
It’s a lot more than just a name change for Infocomm, which will still be the name of the big annual trade show and versions of it in other countries. The new AVIXA branding reflects much deeper thinking by the InfoComm board and executive team, which is run by CEO David Labuskes.
On the tail end of a crazy-busy launch day, and in the middle of a cocktail party, I managed to grab Labuskes for a chat, to find out what AVIXA is all about, and what it means for people and companies in the digital signage industry.
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Wednesday May 24, 2017
David Mou, Pilot TV
Wednesday May 24, 2017
Wednesday May 24, 2017
I was introduced to Taiwan’s Pilot TV and the company’s product evangelist David Mou by some of the folks who invited me over to Beijing recently for a speech at InfoComm China. Mou wanted to tell me about his company and thought it would make good podcast material.
I tried to dodge that, because I’m about as excited by digital out of home ad networks in c-stores as I am about traffic jams and Jane Austen movies. Soooo many ad networks like that have failed.
But he’s a persistent guy, and when we met at that Beijing trade show, he rattled off what was going on, and pretty quickly convinced me this was not another no-hoper “built it and the advertisers will come” screen network.
These guys are heavily into analytics and proving to packaged goods and other brands that this is a medium that works, and they already have 8,000 screens running in Taiwan and beyond.
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Wednesday May 17, 2017
Rodolfo Saccoman, AdMobilize
Wednesday May 17, 2017
Wednesday May 17, 2017
There’s nothing all that new about digital signage networks using video analytics to get some sense of what’s happening with audiences near screens, but AdMobilize is not just another company peddling the same old stuff.
I spoke with CEO and Founder Rodolfo Saccoman about a product and service he says rolls up a wide range of different measurement technologies under one simple, harmonized platform.
Saccoman comes out of the IT side of the hospitality industry and he totally gets the importance of customer service and experience. He also understands buzz, and the insatiable appetite out there for cutting costs. That may explain, in part, why the company’s AdBeacon measurement device runs off the extremely buzz-worthy Raspberry Pi board.
We get into a lot of things in our chat - including how he thinks computer vision and artificial intelligence will work in the future in digital signage and digital out of home.
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Wednesday Apr 12, 2017
Ke-Quang Nguyen-Phuc, Quividi
Wednesday Apr 12, 2017
Wednesday Apr 12, 2017
A lot of companies have come in and out of video analytics for digital signage, but the one constant has been Quividi - a French company with an anonymous pattern detection product a lot of people will tell you is the gold standard for this tech.
I sat with CEO Ke-Quang Nguyen-Phuc during a break at ISE a few weeks ago, and got the rundown on the company and what’s going on with this technology, now and in the future. We talk about the distinction between face recognition and face detection, and what the technology can do for network operators and brands.
We also get into the insights delivered by audience analytics, including how long people really look at screens, and what screens generate the least attention. It's a little technical here and there, but you'll learn stuff.
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