We may not be heading to Vancouver in February, but we are heading to Vegas to pick up some hardware of our own.

We were psyched to find out that we’re finalists for both an Apex Award for our work on GeorgeTweets and for a Content Award for our cross-channel campaign for VH1’s The Great Debate. The awards will be handed out at the Digital Signage Expo in Vegas on February 24th.

Congrats also go to our network partner Zoom Media & Marketing, who share the spotlight with us for both of these honors!

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A few weeks ago, I attended a talk at the Berkman Center that centered around the concept of online “platforms” and the politics of the loosely-defined layers tangled up in the term.

From a theoretical vantage point, the need for a firmer definition comes at a favorable intersection. The mainstream players cited in the talk (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr) have all undergone endless UI iterations and carry robust and vocal user bases, indicating that basic functionality is well understood across audiences; yet, from a partner integration standpoint, the services remain malleable enough that brands and networks can still help to define their access points and relational methodology.

The critical point here is that this juncture isn’t only ripe in the academic sphere. Clearly the industry can (and should) benefit as well, and it should be noted that this ‘industry’ encompasses not only digital signage networks, but an entire host of satellite segments (see diagram above).

It’s evident that it’s prime time for defining not only what a platform can and should be in a New Media sense, but also for proving its potential in the term’s most basic faculty: as an interactive stage for people, causes, and ideas.

A better defined platform becomes the industry’s foundation for new sets of fresh, ready to run, interactive, real-time apps that will help shape further integration across DOOH.

(And it should come as no surprise that we have more up our sleeve in this regard…)

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Okay, so that title was a little much, but those X-Games promos sure do like their power adjectives… And we’re excited to display our place-based social media platform at the Winter X-Games!

I wish I had on-site photos to share, but I’ll have to settle for some bar pics of our real-time Twitter/Flickr screens for XGames that we rolled out with Zoom Media & Marketing. The screens captured tweets and photos from correspondents at the games, and streamed them live onto screens in bars nationwide…

Let’s just hope the screens didn’t showcase too many images of Shaun White’s unfortunate beat-up face…

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Marking the start of a very exciting and busy quarter for LocaModa, yesterday we announced that our place-based platform will be integrated into indoorDIRECT’s Restaurant Entertainment Network, featuring shows such as theBITE, theBITEWeekend and theBITE@Nite. The network can now run mobile and social interactive applications in more than 1,000 quick-serve restaurants including Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr and McDonald’s.

The full release can be found on both Digital Signage Universe and the official Digital Signage Expo site.

And if you haven’t signed up yet, this Thursday (1/28) is Stephen Randall’s free webinar on Social Media and Digital Signage. Should be a great conversation – Bill Yackey of Digital Signage Today will be moderating.

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Who: LocaModa CEO Stephen Randall joins Janice Litvinoff from Cisco, Jeff Dumo from Array Interactive, and Bill Yackey from Digital Signage Today

When: January 28th, 2pm EST

Where: Your desk, kitchen counter, or that corner table at Peet’s with the slightly wobbly leg. Bring appropriate snacks and caffeine.

Why: The social media phenomenon has quickly spread and has changed the way people expect to receive information and communicate. Social media has changed the traditional one-to-many broadcast by connecting many-to-many through social media dialogues. Content consumers are transformed into content producers allowing you to strengthen your relationship and connection with your target audience.[src]

How: Register here!

You can also follow Stephen on Twitter!

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Here in MA, we’re in the midst of a firey Special Election for Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat. Twitter is all-ajabber about it, and Wiffiti is capturing the stream (and welcoming live txts and photos).

Send your txts in the form of @MAsenate + your msg to 87884, or send photos to MAsenate@wiffiti.com with your caption in the subject line.

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Richard Leibovitz, Editorial Director at Digital Signage Expo, posted a great question on the LinkedIn 2010 Educational Faculty Group Forum about the viability and implementation of a Twitter backchannel at conferences and events.

He asks:

DSE is looking for ways to engage the Twitter backchannel as part of the educational conference discussion at DSE 2010. Please join the discussion by sharing any experience you’ve had with attendees tweeting in conference rooms and any suggestions you might have for using these tweets in a positive way… The other question is whether we ask our session moderators to monitor tweets as a way to gather questions for the speakers, or whether the speakers themselves should be moderating tweets during their sessions so they can respond directly to questions?

I wanted to post my thoughts here since many The Web Outside readers may not be involved in the DSE site (but you should be!)
***

I think one of the main sticking points on the moderation discussion is directly related to the definition of ‘backchannel’ itself. The concept of a Twitter backchannel has recently come to the fore of many conference and event planning discussions, but the term has unfortunately taken on a dual definition that’s at odds with itself.

In one camp, event organizers view this backchannel as a means of providing additional context for the event – an ambient reflection of the happenings on the show floor.

In the other camp, the backchannel is understood as a direct means of communication with the speaker or event organizers, a ‘DM’ to the topic/speaker currently at the helm.

The problem with this twofold definition is that each use case begs for entirely different moderation protocol. In the former case, an auto-filter eliminating profanity (and all of its creative permutations!) and racial slurs may be enough in many instances. In the latter, specific context plays a much larger role, and cherry-picking content is often the only route to guaranteeing relevant (if not ‘appropriate’) messages are displayed. It’s actually quite similar to the struggle that contextual advertising software faces.

At LocaModa, we’ve addressed these two scenarios with a moderation system that allows for:
1. auto-filtering at G, R, X ratings
2. human moderation in a queue format
3. a ‘curation’ system that allows for cherry-picking of content in terms of time/relevance

For DSE, I think a Wiffiti screen (with additional hashtagged Twitter and Flickr streams) would work well as an ambient screen in the networking area, and would give the options of auto-filter with optional human moderation if the self-advertising gets out of hand.

Using the screen as a specific pairing with a speaker is always a dodgier situation, especially when conferences attempt to pigeonhole its use into a standard Q&A format. This backchannel shouldn’t replace human interaction, but rather, enhance it. As an ambient channel, Wiffiti can be a very powerful tool. As a replacement for rote Q&A session transcription, I’d recommend sticking with manual entry Powerpoint.
***

I’d love to hear other industry views on this topic… Do you think some of the resistance of the real-time format is directly connected to the conflicting definitions of how a backchannel should be most effectively framed and viewed?

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I typically do a weekly scan of new deployments in digital signage across LocaModa’s most relevant channels – quick serve restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, public spaces. Most are fairly standard POS solutions, digital menu boards, and streaming news content. Since we’re focused on elevating such installments to include interactivity (and ultimately branch them into a cross-channel effort), I often have a hard time evaluating the signage at face value and not immediately jumping to next steps.

A headline on the Digital Signage Expo site this morning caught my eye not because of a unique use of digital signage, but for the cool factor of the venue itself: The Cereal Bowl Restaurants Roll Out Digital Signage.

A QSR devoted entirely to customized cereal creations? So smart.

Add in fro-yo options to hop aboard the Pinkberry craze? All the smarter.

Their new digital signage installation makes me salivate thinking about the options for interactivity on those screens! To start, patrons could send in texts with their favorite cereal “recipes” and email in mobile photos of their creations once they’ve been built. How about incorporating a social poll where users submit their carby masterpieces and other patrons vote and comment? Add in customized Cereal Bowl Twitter and Flickr hashtags… and now we’re getting somewhere.

For such a fun venue, I’d love to see the ante upped with their DS solution…

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My previous two posts (I, II) have attempted to lend structure to the inherently elusive measurement model for cross-channel campaigns. As much as I underscore on the ‘qualify over quantify’ model, people love numbers. Particularly clients.

Hey, go figure.

Luckily, many of our applications love the numerical spotlight. Take Jumbli, for example. For our cross-channel campaign with AT&T, the average interaction time for the word game was 76.77 minutes for web players and 4.15 minutes for mobile players. We have players that have accumulated more than 5 million points- that requires literally months of play.

However, as I discussed in yesterday’s post, the Vans Be Here campaign follows an entirely different user reward model. For this campaign, we want the actual user interaction time to be fairly short (because the UI is clear and the submission process is efficient), and for the meat of the interaction (the ’share’) to carry on long after the site has been closed (or after the user walks away from the billboard).

The metrics we can track numerically (total # of users, # of unique users, # of submissions) pale in importance to the number of minutes that users spend sharing their snapshot, replaying their Times Square webcam video, encouraging their friends to send in their photos.

And therein lies the rub.

Because we’ve outsourced the ‘reward’ to the user (in allowing them to use our platform in a very personal, natural way), we’ve made the richest metrics harder to quantify. Does this make the campaign less valuable than a Jumbli campaign that has a much more quantifiable user experience? Of course not.

But it does require an understanding within the industry that a shift is happening– one that humiliates your calculator under a pile of Facebook status updates.

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Yesterday, I addressed the difficulty in pinning down metrics for place-based cross-channel campaigns like Vans Be Here.

We can all agree that we’re scrabbling on slippery ground when it comes to crunching numbers. So what do we do about it?

First, locate the reward.

For this campaign, the real payoff for the user is grabbing a snapshot of their photo (or text message) displayed on Viacom’s iconic Jumbotron in Times Square and sharing it with friends.

Now make this step as simple as possible for the user. (In this example, we send them an email with a direct link to their ‘moment,’ and we allow them to spread the photo with a single click.)

Direct Link:

Upon clicking the “Snapshot” button:

But, what is this interaction exactly?
How do we account for this?; rather, how do we ‘count’ this?

Well, the tricky thing is that this interaction starts with a unique user’s single click, but the real fruit falls when the snapshot is shared. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say the average # of connections for this one user is 126 (the current average # of followers for Twitter users, which seems fair in respect to The Dunbar Number).

So does this count as 1 click and 126 impressions?
Not quite.

What about the out-of-home component? How many eyeballs saw this photo in Times Square? How many people did it affect (passively, subconsciously)?; How many were actually stirred to effect (actively sending in their photo, too)?

Well, if we take into consideration that 1.6 million people pass through Times Square each day (and 500,000 gather there on NYE), then we’ve clearly thrown an exponent into the mix here (though actual computations here are flimsy at best). [src]

A campaign like this must be understood as tracking ‘interaction bundles’ rather than simply impressions or clicks (at the risk of muddying the already murky waters of digital out-of-home vocabulary). The only way to give meaning to numbers here is to qualify rather than quantify:

* Define your verbs (click, txt, view, visit, watch, write, submit, photograph, playback, share, embed)
* Assign worth (find the ‘fruit’)
* Construct goals around collecting as much of this fruit as possible (in this case, getting as many users as possible to share their image with their friends).

Not done yet.

Now calculate the out-of-home spreadability and brand identification piece that’s happening here on a much larger scale than any subset of active users could ever proliferate (no matter how much you subscribe to The Law of the Few).

We end up with a results overview that should remain focused on the brand awareness component, but should also give due credence to the rich ‘interaction bundles’ of the superuser (one who actually employs at least three of these verbs- e.g. visits the site, sees the billboard, sends in content, gets a snapshot, and shares among his social graph).

Have I made you nostalgic for the days of banner ads yet?

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