Digital Signage Solutions

Several digital signage gurus have suggested that tickers (or crawls) run on digital signage networks are somehow maming the industry. To raise awareness to this "plague," David Weinfeld from The Preset Group have suggested that today, July 9, be Ticker Free Day 2010. Even the folks over at DailyDOOH are falling in line.

But why you ask (and I do, too)? Apparently, they are hoping to prove that networks can run relevant and engaging content without tickers.

Of course they can. Networks can also be run well without video. They can be run well without Flash. They can be run well without the inclusion of weather. It all comes down to content and the choices made. Who knows? Maybe we'll see No Flashy Flashy Day around the bend. I hear September is kind of slow.

I love Cap'N Crunch cereal. It might be my favorite. So if somebody told me that July 9 was Free the Cap'N Day 2010 and that I shouldn't eat the cereal, I wouldn't go along with it. Why? Because I like Cap'N Crunch cereal. That's great if somebody else doesn't like it, but I do.

I blogged that I recently went on a mid-pilot visit with one of our clients running a corporate communication network. We sat down with groups of employees to discuss what they liked or disliked about the network and what could be done to make it better.

Take a guess what the most positive feedbak tied to? Information in the ticker. Our client did a nice job of mixing up the ticker content between both internal news as well as external news (like weather, sports scores, etc.). The employees liked it. And if this company participated in the Ticker Free Day 2010, employees would not like it.

Take another guess if they are going to participate Ticker Free Day 2010 by removing their ticker. David does acknowledge in his post that not all tickers are bad and that they can be used the right way.

So I propose that instead of just telling people not to use tickers, let's teach them the right way.