Talk:Digital signage

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The article refers to "The recent introduction of free digital signage software". This is a reference without a source. As I am very interested in this free software, I would like someone to (perhaps) begin a list of Digital Signage Software? I know some proprietary ones, but no free ones. 212.104.204.79 (talk) 09:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello - In order to be fair there simply must be NO links to company blogs here. To pretend that these blogs are not marketing arms of the associated companies is a joke. Rather than get into fights about who or what is independent, why not just make a blanket rule that only genuniley independent blogs are listed. I am MD of Ryarc Media Systems, a software company who's blog is not listed here. Thoughts? --Fergal O' Ceallaigh.


I have reinstated the link to www.aka.tv - it is not a digital-signage solution provider, it's a source of further information on the technology and the sector. (Incidentally, the blog link which Kareeser left in is on the site of a solution provider...though I'm not saying it should be removed.) Maybe we should also link to POPAIdigital and other industry bodies, such as they are? Barnabypage 18:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Barnaby, I won't say I'm enlightened or all-knowing. Just humble, and in thanks for noticing my mistake. I blatently assumed that most of the external links were adspam, as it seems to be all that was being added to the article. Kareeser|Talk! 04:28, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
No prob. ;) Barnabypage 14:05, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why the 16:9 blog link was deleted. While I work for a for a firm involved in the business, I take considerable pains not to hump our wares ... I would encourage you to look through the blog and show where I have stepped over some line ... some other blogs clearly do, but the better of those are also quite useful and relevant

I removed the blog links first of all because there were duplicates, and secondly, because there are no comments on the blog. It's not a rule set in stone, obviously, so there are always exceptions. It just seems like the work of one company, with (I hate to say it), not many readers. Kareeser|Talk! 23:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
The 16:9 blog (which I follow almost daily) has never struck me as promoting the blogger's company. If this was a mature industry with lots of established trade publications and online forums I'd agree that we shouldn't link to every single blog - but there are so few (relatively) disinterested sources of information on digital signage that it's a case of any port in a storm. I suggest we reinstate this and also Bill Gerba's blog (actually, I can't remember if that ever was linked). Barnabypage 12:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why my addition to the page [The Digital Signage Technologist] is classified as a "commericial link" and a spam. It is a open WordPress blog and is a neutral reporting blog for technologies. Please allow me to add it back for now and please when you decide it is a spam, give reasons as to why you think so and how more spam it is than all other links currently on that page. John Wang

The website is a simple blog which contains link after link to digital signage solutions. As wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertisers, this makes the link ineligible for inclusion. Furthermore, quick browsing through the blog shows no reporting at all. It is simply, like I said before, link after link. On the other hand, a blog like Sixteen Nine includes observational and objective opinions regarding digital signage solutions. As of now, it is still adspam. Sorry. Kareeser|Talk! 17:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I beg to differ. If you look under the surface each product is presented with technical categorization that is gathered from various information sources and presented in a digest form for the reader to quickly compare differences in technology. There is no one side this blog takes. It is a very useful "technical" information source for those who are looking to understand what is behind the new media. There is no other source on the web that presents the state of the technology this way.Isn't this what an enclopedia is all about? --John Wang 00:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with John. The categorisation adds some value. Let's reinstate the link. Barnabypage 13:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
As stated before, I think we really ought to keep the link to the 16:9 blog. It's not, AIUI, 'corporate-sponsored' - it's just that the blogger works for a company in the sector and reasonably enough declares that. He certainly doesn't promote the company unduly in the blog's content. And for this reason, I don't believe that admitting it opens the floodgates to true corporate blogs like this one: http://www.screenevents.co.uk/blog/. Can we have everyone's input on this and try to formulate a sensible policy that doesn't exclude useful blogs? Is there a general Wiki blog policy? (Is there a Wiki voting mechanism we could use here?) Barnabypage 18:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
As far as I know, it's a simple straw poll. Being unrelated to the digital signage field, I don't have an in-depth knowledge of what constitutes coporate sponsored, and not. It simply seems like adspam to me. As you are the expert, I'll leave it up to you to decide. ;-)
At any rate: We've already established that the 16:9 blog is allowed to stay here (product of previous disagreement), so I shall restore it now, with a link to the talk page. Kareeser|Talk! 18:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
My input is to ban blogs that (a) contain reference (links, contact info, personnel info, etc.) to a single commercial company; (b) forbid others to post comments to articles. --John Wang 04:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
The thing that bothers me the most is the sheer amount of "blogs" there are on this particular subject. I'm pretty sure you would never find 15 links to 15 different blogs on the George Bush article. That is also one of the reasons why I invoked the WP:WEB guideline when I removed the other blogs. I personally think that there should be one blog, given the page length, representative of the entire digital signage industry. The fact that there are so many leads me to view them as mere "fansites". See my point?
Reading WP:WEB more closely, I find now that most of the blogs shouldn't even be listed in the article to begin with. It doesn't meet any of the three guidelines, and I believe most of them are your personal blogs (John, and Barnaby). Business or not, you shouldn't have your own blog, as it borders on violating the NPOV policy. If you'd like, we can bring in an arbiter to help us abate this issue. Kareeser|Talk! 07:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:External links should really be our guide here. It states: "Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to. Although there are exceptions, such as when the article is about, or closely related to, the website itself, or if the website is of particularly high standard." So the quesion is, are any of these blogs of "particularly high standard"? By the way, the site I work for (but did not personally add to Wikipedia, as I recall), www.aka.tv, is not a blog. Barnabypage 13:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
aka.tv seems alright, although I have not looked at it extensively. I've said it before (to mixed reactions): "Just because you think it's notable, doesn't make it notable". The blogspot blogs themselves, I suppose, we have agreed, are not notable, and should not be included? If there are any comments, they can post them here.
The blogs I am placing under fire are:
Webpavement (Blogspot hosted)
dsigntech, which used to post links to commerical websites, but stopped since May 7th
John Wang's blog, hosted by blogspot, and
sixteen:nine 16:9, again, for being a blog.
Keep in mind that they can be useful, and I may just be naming names, but a blog's a blog, and doesn't necessarily warrant inclusion in Wikipedia. Do casual readers interested in the digital signage industry need blogs to further their understanding of the industry? I was originally content to leave "Digital signage" as a dictionary definition, but more is always welcome... Kareeser|Talk! 19:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
My suggestion would be that if we can reach consensus on which of the blogs is the best (my vote would go for either sixteen:nine or Bill Gerba's, probably the former), we keep a link to that one on the "particularly high standard" basis and because there are, quite simply, very few online sources of information on digital signage other than vendor Websites - as I've said before, if there were lots of industry associations etc. etc. with information-packed sites, I'd agree we might not want to link to blogs at all. (Plus, of course, carry on linking to POPAI, aka.tv etc.) Is this a workable compromise? Barnabypage 21:01, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Kareeser has brought this issue to Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance).[1] As such, I'll give my thoughts here. I think that

  1. Advertising-like language should be avoided, specifically peacock terms. "Leading digital signage weblog from industry experts" isn't an acceptable summary for anything.
  2. There are too many external links right now, since they all basically serve the same nominal purpose (discussion of digital signage).
  3. I strongly recommend that no one affiliated with a link add it to an article. Instead, post it on the talk page and ask others to consider adding it if they think it's useful.
  4. Popularity is not a determining factor when deciding whether to include a link. Usefulness to our readers is. If multiple links are equally useful, and there are more than about three, then it's probably best to pick the most popular two or three on the basis that popularity is at least partially indicative of utility.
  5. Sites run by companies who have a vested interest in portraying themselves favorably are not generally as useful for information about the field as an impartial third party, even if the authors have the best intentions. This means that any blog by an employee of a company is automatically suspect. This isn't a suggestion of deliberate misinformation, but of bias.

As a consequence of these principles, I would favor keeping about two sites, say aka.tv (appears to be independent and informative) and maybe The Digital Signage Forum (for the discussion-oriented aspect). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for reply, Simetrical :) I believe the word you were looking for was Weasel word.
At any rate, the compromise seems fair. Comments? Kareeser|Talk! 07:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Just because a source of information is corporate sponsored, doesn't mean it lacks useful information. Readers are smart enough to filter useful information from corporate ads. I read articles from other digital signage solution providers, and I think it's fair to say most in the industry do too. The industry is rather infant and censoring links to useful information does not help. And lets face it, even those sites that provide independent research or articles are still in it to make money; it just so happens that their involvement in the industry appears less transparent than a digital signage solution provider. Also, when the industry has conventions or expos, they don't filter out certain players in the industry, because everyone has a role. Plus, the person that types in "digital signage" in Wikipedia is likely very new to the industry. Maybe they are looking for solution providers, maybe they are trying to figure out which one is better suited for them, or maybe they are just looking to keep up with news and articles from the various players in the industry. Whatever the case, having only a few external links is not going to fulfill their needs. jcoffman
Independent sources have motives, but not motives that would generally lead them to skew their coverage as badly as sources that are in the business. Consumer Reports has a motive to get me to buy their magazine, but has no motive to get me to buy any of the products they review. Independent review sites that are being actively maintained will generally link to all the major players in the industry, so no real utility is lost by providing just one or two "gateway" sites rather than a huge list of every affiliated company's website. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
You make some valid points. A huge list of companies would not be in the user's best interest. However, readers are smart enough to discern valuable information from sales pitch and company bias. Disallowing valuable websites from users because it is affiliated with a certain company is a disservice to those researching the industry.jcoffman
How valuable are most of the removed websites? Sales pitch and company bias are inextricably tied into company sites, as a virtually universal rule. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the point to remember here is that we're not talking about official company sites, but about blogs run in their private capacity by people who also work for companies in the industry. Agreed they're not entirely unbiased, but as I've suggested before, in a business with so few impartial sources of information, they're better than nothing. Barnabypage 12:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
aka.tv and the digital signage forum are both commercially funded by the industry. Product highlights are presented specifically favoring their sponsors. If other blogs which are no more commercial than these two are removed without a clear policy, then should these two links be removed altogether? In my view there is no way you can understand the state of the term by looking at the limited amount of information provided here. I vote for including blogs under the principle that the blogs are open to comments and modifications. If information presented there is biased I am sure someone will object there. --John Wang 08:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
That's probably precisely the reason why blogs are not encouraged. The blogs themselves are the opinions of one person (for every blog I've seen linked from this article, that has been the case), and what's to say that this one person is representative of the entire industry? There's a rule on Wikipedia which states that users should never write about themselves. Bill Gates should never edit his Wiki article, just as Jimbo Wales has (probably) never edited his. Like Simetrical says, bias is inextricably tied, whether the blog represents the company, or your own personal opinion. Kareeser|Talk! 13:44, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
But that rule means that people/companies should not edit Wikipedia entries that pertain to themselves - it doesn't as far as I can see bear on the issue of what to link to. If we were to prohibit links to everything that might conceivably have some commercial bias or other, vast numbers of corporate and advertising-funded links would have to go. I'll reiterate, it seems to me the issue here should not be whether they are blogs or not (where do blogs stop and news Websites start, anyway, in reality?) - the key question is whether people other than the site's owner believe that a given link offers valuable information. Barnabypage 16:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I added Digital Signage Talk - a blog - back onto the page prior to checking this section. I didn't mean to violate protocol. I'm really not sure why there is hostility to blogs in an age of blogs. Sure, if a blog is a marketing/sales piece, it shouldn't be here, but good blogs are valuable sources of information from people who watch a rapidly-changing/rapidly-developing area like digital signage. I do that and a good blog is a much better source of filtered information than a zillion Google Alerts. --dvansng 28 June 2006

16:9 guy here ... I appreciate the many positive comments about my blog. I noticed the other day the traffic in from Wikipedia had dried up and came here to learn my blog had been voted off the island. If the blog mentioned immediately above makes the cut and mine doesn't, I'm mightily confused about your policy. Kick me and others off if we're breaking vows and shamelessly humping products. But as others have noted, there is way too much hype and blabber out there and a handful of bloggers are just trying to help weed out the crap and point to what's real and relevant. My two cents, in Canadian $$$.

Views on the deletion/reinstatement of the links to the Digital Signage Forum, Self-Service World and Digital Signage Today, please? Barnabypage 13:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
LisaJ here from the Digital Signage Forum. I see we were taken off the nice list. We feel our open discussions are a great resource to the industry for newcomers and end-users. We do not allow a free for all advertising in our threads and our forum is heavily monitored as such.
That being said, the cost of running our forum, (most months) outweighs incoming revenue and we try and keep it as educational as possible. I really do not understand why it would be banned from this list as a resource??
Per Simetrical's comments back in June, I think the Forum is a good contender for the list. Barnabypage 13:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Barbabypage Lisa

I see that an editor has now removed all the links except that to The Screen. At the very least, I can't see much logic to allowing The Screen and excluding the CDSA - but can we have views from other editors before embarking on an endless cycle of reversions? Barnabypage 13:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I think we need to revisit this discussion now that two blogs (DailyDOOH and mediadigitalsignage.com) have been added to the list. I'm not going to remove them as I am personally associated with aka.tv (removed a while back) and it could look like sour grapes - but we do need some consistency here... Barnabypage 12:41, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I have added in links to digitalsignagetoday.com and SCREENS.tv, neither of which is a blog or directly associated with any individual vendor. It seems absurd to be listing The Screen - a credible body but one that represents only the UK industry - as our only source of further info. For the record, I am associated with SCREENS.tv. Barnabypage (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay - I see these have been reverted - so in line with Wikipedia:External_links#What_should_be_linked I am asking other editors to consider adding www.screens.tv - and Collectonian to clarify what they consider 'shady' about digitalsignagetoday.com! Barnabypage (talk) 14:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
digitalsignagetoday.com seems to primarily an advertising website and not an industry expert or particularly suited for external linking. Collectonian (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
There's actually quite a bit of content there, updated most days. Personally I don't think it falls afoul of the Wikipedia:External links proscription of "objectionable amounts of advertising", though obviously that's a subjective issue. Barnabypage (talk) 17:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POPAI

I'm not sure that the paragraph below is at all helpful:

The large number of terms that have emerged to describe the nascent industry led Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI) to form a digital signage standards group in 2005. This group is currently tasked with assembling a list of standard terminology for describing digital signage technology and business models. It is expected to release a final list of its recommendations in 2006.

I think the section on POPAI needs more citing/linking. I've tried to find out more about this alleged list of recommendations but even the POPAI digital site seems to have nothing on it. What's more, its directory doesn't list any of the five digital signage companies I've seen presenting their products. HOw unbiased is POPAI and how useful? --Rhi 16:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Which Screen Association?

I find the mention of The Screen Association confusing. The article contains the text:

The Screen Association has sought to address some of the most pressing issues for the advertising market by releasing a white paper on audience measurement and a directory of UK based ad-networks.[citation needed] For the broader digital signage market the Screen Association has also issued an Industry Directory which is intended as a proposed roadmap for industry development.

There is also a link marked The Screen Association UK which links to http://www.thescreen.org/

However, the UK Screen Association as I understand it is the trade body that represents UK service companies to the film and television screen industries. (http://www.ukscreenassociation.co.uk) The Screen, which is what the link actually leads to, represents itself as an independent UK based trade association for the digital signage industry. Both sites are members only, neither has an industry directory but both have members directories which list fee-paying members.

Accordingly the paragraph on the Screen Association seems to be duplicitious (the lesser known digital signage group are trading on the name of the more prominent group), fradulent (the white paper isn't linked and doesn't appear to exist) and promotional (advertising digital signage suppliers rather than providing content). --Rhi 16:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, Rhi - you reminded me that I've been meaning to fix it for a while. The organisation referred to is The Screen, which is the correct name of the association running the Website to which we link. It is, as far as I know, nothing to do with the other association you mention.
Having said that, I have for now removed the text from the article (while leaving the link) - it seems misleading to talk about what The Screen is doing and not mention what other organisations e.g. POPAI, various audience-research groups, etc. are working on - it gives the misleading impression that The Screen is the only one active in this kind of 'thought leadership'.
So - I'll try to do it, but if anyone has the time and inclination to add some information on other groups which are working on standards, measurement etc. that would be great, and The Screen could then take its rightful place among them. Barnabypage 16:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)