Disruptive technologies can greatly change society. For example, in 2007, Apple released the iPhone that had a massive impact on how and why people use phones. Yes, most of us still talk on phones, but we are using smartphones for just about everything else, too. How much longer will society tolerate anything less than "smart", and what does all this mean to the future of digital signage?

Life was certainly less connected before smartphones. For example, before most people knew that an Apple was more than a tasty fruit, I was fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your perspective) to have had one of the first smartphones on the market, a Toshiba Pocket PC. If you have never heard of this product, that's probably because it was made about the time you were born or otherwise too young to care.

What do I remember about this phone? Nothing glamorous. It was slow, clunky to operate, prone to glitches, required rebooting about as often as Windows 95, even crashing with the blue screen of death on occasion!

And when I think about this a bit more, I realize the same could be said about legacy digital signage systems.

It just so happens I was involved with the nascent digital signage industry in the 90s, the same decade the original smartphones were invented. Yes, when I think about digital signage in the 90s, I can easily conclude it too was slow, clunky to operate, prone to glitches, required rebooting about as often as Windows 95, even crashing with the blue screen of death on occasion!

However, if I were to sum up digital signage starting in the 90s right up to the last few years, one would have to say that despite all of its quirks and limitations, it was glamorous. How about you? How did you feel about digital signage in its infant years? Try this; think back to the very first time you saw a flat panel television. You were likely spellbound with its thin stature and seductive HD resolution. If not spellbound, maybe you remember being gagged by its price with those early plasma panels costing over $10K each.

Peering into 2014 and beyond, I think we can safely say that digital signage is beyond glamorous-it's a bona fide medium-at least for advertisers. For example, at the 2013 Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA) summit held in New York City, the panelists agreed that place-based advertising (think digital sign media) would continue to rise through 2017 (up from 5% to as much as 25%). "I think place-based will outgrow [other forms of media] because it lends itself to targeting customers," said Chris Paul, General Manager AOD of VivaKi. "It is just a matter of technology, terminology, and industry understanding being in sync before we see dramatic changes."

What kind of dramatic changes is Paul alluding to? Possibly, the 2013 ANA/Nielsen Survey has the answer. The survey states that in three years, the importance of integrated multi-screen campaigns is expected to dramatically increase, from 20 percent of digital media purchases today to a projected 50 percent by 2016.

We might consider at this point the attributes that would lead to such optimism on spending. According to the survey, spending increases on multi-screen campaigns will require three main things:

• Verification that advertising achieved the desired result (noted by 71 percent of respondents)
• Consistent metrics across screens (61 percent)
• Verification that advertising was delivered to the right audience (59 percent)

Are you one of those that still think digital signage is a fad? Heads up! According to the AdNation News article, Digital Place-based Media, What's Ahead?, there are strong reasons to believe it's here to stay. The article reported a case study related by David Krupp, CEO of Kinetic, who shared information about Degree Women's "DO MORE" antiperspirant campaign.

 "By focusing place-based media in gyms, likely to be seen by women while they were working out, the study concluded that consumers had better recall (56%) and a stronger intent to purchase (62%) than the control group. Krupp described Degree as 'the right brand for the right environment' because in this place-based campaign, it reached a large scale of consumers, who were in the right mindset to recall the product."

So digital signage went from glamorous to a medium to a business almost overnight. It started out as an eccentric technology with a glamorous flair. Eccentric because no one was exactly sure what to do with it and how to best use it-plus it was unfriendly to use and awkward to manage.

But glamour alone does not build markets. Results build markets because investors put their money where opportunities look promising, and digital signage has been adept at getting results. Looking forward to 2014 and beyond, we can now make an educated guess at where digital signage is heading, and we need to look no further than the popularity of smartphones, online gaming devices, tablets and the Internet itself.

What do these popular technologies all have in common? The single thread that ties everything together comes in the form of engagement. Digital signage of yesteryear behaved more like our parents' TV-it broadcast a message to its likely viewers without a plan for interaction. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but the big opportunity for digital signage going forward has more to do with engagement. Engagement is the way forward for digital media of all kinds, including advertising, branding, infotainment, videos, movies, gaming, and social media at large.

David Little is a charter member of Digital Screenmedia Association with over 10 years of experience supplying professionals with trusted digital signage solutions. For many more helpful digital signage tips, examples and solutions, keep in touch with Keywest Technology.

As I peek at 2013 coming just around the corner, I cannot help but notice how downward price pressures are intersecting with demand and driving digital signage market growth. As many benefits continue to be realized, I believe some are more important than others and point to what we can expect in the coming year.

As in any tech-fueled market, reducing cost while increasing efficiency are major factors that come into play when talking about market growth. This fact is highlighted by realizing that digital signage fits well into the corporate mantra of "doing more with less."

With digital signage, doing more with less is certainly one of the big benefits. And with noticeable price reductions in 2012 that are certain to continue in 2013, I concur with recent reports from IHS iSuppli, Platt Retail Institute and others who believe the demand will continue to build at a healthy pace.

Price reductions are being realized in every area of digital signage. For example, as hardware is getting more specialized for media playback on consumer-type products that are mass produced for a worldwide market, the digital signage industry either directly or indirectly benefits from the use of this mobile and media-centric technologies that have a considerable scale of economy in production. This scale of economy is being reflected in today's prices of media players and displays used for digital signage. Even on the software side, the use of Linux and the recent emergence of Android on media players leads the way to extremely low cost albeit more basic offerings, putting a small turnkey system at about the same price as taking the family out for a nice dinner.

The most cited benefit of digital signage is to place information anywhere it needs to be updated often-automatically through an existing IT network-increasing workplace efficiencies by reducing time-consuming micro tasking of personnel who can now be reassigned to less redundant activities. The added benefits to the workplace doesn't just save time and labor, it also increases the effectiveness of communicating, making digital signage a win-win proposition for both managers and consumers.

You don't need a psychology degree to understand moving images are more appealing to one's eye than static images. Combine this with media designed for a certain demographic and then scheduled to playout accordingly at the right place and time, now the effectiveness of the medium increases exponentially.

I believe we're now at the tipping point where digital signage is no longer a nice to have but more like a got to have, e.g., "By using digital signage I get more bang for my buck by reducing production cost upwards of 50%. And this efficiency increases the more I choose to update my message." Simply put, digital signage today just makes good business sense on many levels.

So what's the bottom line for 2013? Well...the bottom line. Communicators using digital signage are better informed and more experienced today, which equips them to make wiser business decisions that are based on ROI or ROO, and this will drive the future of digital signage in 2013.

Smart TVs with interfaces based on voice control and other cool technology may one day change how digital signs integrate interactivity.

It wasn't too long ago when a digital sign consisted of a TV set and a VHS deck or DVD player. In what seems like a flash, tube TVs are passé, and VHS cassette players are beginning to look a little like antiques.

Driven largely by the overwhelming popularity of HDTV in America (recent research from Leichtman Research Group finds high-def sets are now in two-thirds of U.S. homes), flat panel displays are achieving ubiquity. Along the way, they transformed the look and appeal of digital signage.

As striking as that change has been, digital signs appear to be on track to see an equally dramatic change over the next few years, once again driven by the consumer television set. At the recently concluded 2012 International CES in Las Vegas, several television vendors rolled out their vision of what a "smart" TV should look like.

Among them were Samsung, LG, Sony and Lenovo, each with their own versions of smart TVs. Google already has taken a run at this market, and Apple is long rumored to be working on its own smart TV with a consumer interface similar to its Siri personal assistant for the iPhone 4S that would let owners control their TV with their voice. Samsung, too, reportedly is at work on adding voice and motion control to new televisions.

For the interactive digital signage industry, these new smart TVs will open doors to greater possibilities for digital sign-based interactivity and further reshape consumer expectations. How long will it be before we see digital signs that allow a hotel guest not only search a list of available restaurants from a digital sign in the lobby but also make reservations simply by speaking to the screen?

Beyond voice interaction with smart TVs, what other benefits might this new generation of televisions bring to digital signage interactivity? Perhaps, these TVs will lead to easier syncing with personal smart phones and tablets offering the public interactive takeaways from the sign. Or, they might make it possible to migrate the digital signage experience from outside the home into the living room -sort of an offshoot of the TV Everywhere concept being promoted these days by pay TV operators, such as cable TV companies.

To be sure, my crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else's. However, it seems obvious that this next-generation television technology will open up new and exciting possibilities for those who communicate via interactive mobile devices. I'm not suggesting these opportunities to employ a higher degree of interactivity will be available in the short term. But when they do come, what it means to communicate with a digital sign will undergo a dramatic transformation.

Where we are today and where we might be headed in the not-too-distant future with this new technology might be as stark of a contrast as the difference between Tom Hanks feverishly plugging in numbers to an early microcomputer in his role as astronaut James Lovell in "Apollo 13" and Leonard Nimoy as Spock saying from his science station aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, "Computer, compute to the last digit the value of pi," and the computer replying: "You're kidding, right?"

Short of a total economic collapse, the digital signage market is in better shape today to weather a new downturn than a few years ago.

Will Greece default on its debt, destabilizing Europe's financial markets and plunging economies around the world back into recession? Or, will the politicians and bankers, find some way to avert the crisis and pull nations back from the precipice?

Frankly, I don't have the slightest idea, and I'm not so sure anyone else does either. But one thing I am confident in is that the conditions are right for the digital signage market to pull through any double-dip in much better shape than it did the first time around during the 2008-09 recession.

Global Industry Analysts, which recently published "Digital Signage Systems: A Global Strategic Business Report," describes the impact of the last recession on digital signage thusly: "...the global digital signage systems market witnessed sizeable deceleration in growth momentum during the years 2008 and 2009, as direct fallout of narrow creativity levels in a weak economy, and credit shortages for funding new and risky ventures during the period."

But this time around -if there is to be a this time around and if the size of economic contraction is not too severe- I believe there are at least five reasons why digital signage is likely to do better.

New kid on the block no more. Even though the last contraction began just three years ago, a lot has changed on the media landscape. For my purpose, two developments bode well for digital signage. First, professionals in the advertising business no longer regard digital signage as a "risky upstart." With documented audience numbers, it's transitioned into the media mainstream. Second, when budgets are tight, companies looking to sell retail products will be more likely to want to influence shoppers with persuasive messages closer to the point of sale.

Lower costs melt from economic frost. Displays as well as digital signage hardware and software is less expense than three years ago. As Global Industry Analysts puts it: "Low hardware costs, and declining software development costs have made systems, such as, media players, and display units like LCD displays cheaper and affordable." The emergence of software-as-a-service as a digital signage business model also is tipping things in favor of those who are cost-conscious.

Flat is where it's at. It's hard to overstate the profound affect media tablets like the Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom and other multi-touch flat screens is having on the way people like to consume digital content. Digital signs, which already bore a striking resemblance to another consumer favorite -i.e. television- when the last recession struck, now have an inherent kinship with media tablets. If they're hybrid digital signs with interactive touch-screen capability, so much the better. Savvy marketers and advertisers recognize these similarities and are likely to exploit them on digital signs to gain a leg up on the competition -even more so in the heightened competitive environment of a slowdown.

Buy low. For those businesses that are flush with cash, a recession can be a golden buying opportunity, if such acquisitions or new product rollouts lead to greater market share. Many traditional media companies that learned some hard lessons about the apparent strengths of their core properties the last time around, have had time to recover. I wouldn't be surprised to see some use a double dip as an opportunity to bolster their core brand with digital signage offerings.

Emerging is verging on splurging. Even if the Greek debt crisis sets off string of economic failures in the West, that doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the world will suffer. As Global Industry Analytics puts it: "Developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and Middle East are forecast to drive future gains in the (digital signage) market. The retail boom in countries like China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, UAE, Hong Kong, and India, among others, provides a strong business case for new installations of digital signage systems."

Please don't misinterpret my optimism about the digital signage market as a lack of concern about the bigger economic picture. Of course, a double-dip would be a terrible development for millions people.

That said, when I look at where the digital signage market is today, I can't help but be bullish on the future of this communications medium.

In early July, the Digital Place-based Advertising Association released results from a survey showing just how important digital-out-of-home media is becoming to professional media planners.

Digital placed-based media, long in its ascendency as a legitimate advertising medium, appear poised to enter an entirely new realm of acceptance among professional media planners, according to a survey released in early July from the Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA).

According to the survey, 86.3 percent of media planning respondents said they intend to use digital place-based media as part of their media plans in 2012, a jump from 75.5 percent who said their 2011 media plans include digital place-based media and 65.3 percent from 2010.

To be sure, the percentages revealed by the survey show digital placed-based media has come into its own as a legitimate advertising vehicle. But what is even more stunning is that the survey found 44 percent of media planners plan to shift dollars once allocated to the granddaddy of electronic media, namely television, to fund their digital place-based media buys.

TV ranked second among existing media that media planners intended to tap for funding their digital place-based media plans. Topping the list was outdoor advertising from which 54 percent said they would shift funds. Digital/online ranked third with nearly 23 percent identifying it as the source of funds. Fewer than 20 percent said they would not shift dollars to fund their plans for digital place-based media.

According to a press release announcing the results of the survey, DPAA president Susan Danaher sees that 20 percent figure as particularly significant because it indicates media planners view digital place-based media as being included from the outset as part of their of media plans, not an afterthought to be funded by simply reallocating dollars.

I see these survey findings as the latest in a line of data points indicating that digital-out-of-home advertising is coming into its own as an advertising medium. Others include progress in audience measurement technologies and techniques and the collection of audience metrics by The Nielsen Company.

These DPAA findings confirm that digital-out-of-home advertising has long ago transitioned from a quirky concept that a handful of avant-garde media planners would experiment with to the mainstream of media alternatives.

The findings also raise in my mind a question about the 14 percent of media buyers who don’t plan to use digital place-based media. It would be easy to assume that they simply will be latecomers to the party when they ultimately recognize the value digital place-based media bring their clients.

But I suspect at least a portion of the holdouts may work on accounts for whom digital place-based media just doesn’t make sense, i.e. an online insurance company with no field agents, a credit monitoring service company or some other business with no physical presence in the proximity of its customers.

The survey was taken online May 6-June 6 by the association among about 1000 strategic media planners nationwide. One can only wonder if media buyers with clients who have no face-to-face customer interaction were removed from the sample what tiny percentage  would have no plans for digital place-based media next year.

A new report from IMS Research forecasts dramatic growth in digital signage over the next few years thanks to growing acceptance of the medium as a valuable ad delivery mechanism.

Whether your operation is a mom-and-pop store or a highfalutin retailer, take note. Digital signage is expected to see some remarkable growth over the next few years and much of that growth will come from retail.

A newly released report from IMS Research concludes that after a couple of sluggish years, the worldwide digital signage market will see growth in excess of 40 percent in 2013 to reach a total of $7 billion. And an important component of that market will be in the retail sector.

According to the research firm, which laid out its forecast in "The World Market for Digital Signage, 2011 Edition," an important reason for the growth is that digital signage is now entering the mainstream of media, which are regularly considered and evaluated by ad agencies and marketers for their advertising purchases.

"There is increasing recognition that it is a valuable tool for directly interacting with audiences, and providing a compelling additional dimension to augment overall advertising placements across media," a press release announcing the findings quotes Shane Walker, director of the Consumer Electronics Group at IMS Research, as saying.

With that growing recognition of the value of digital signage as an advertising medium, it's not too surprising that IMS Research found strong growth in the retail sector.

The new study shows that of all the vertical markets for digital signage, retail continues to be the largest, accounting for just under 25 percent of all digital signage hardware and software sales. By the end of 2015, IMS Research forecasts retail will remain the dominant sector of the digital signage market, reaching nearly $2 billion.

Long recognized as a fundamental strength of digital signage in retail, the ability to reach shoppers at the point of sale with a message aimed at influencing their final buying decision is likely to benefit from a trend that is in its infancy at home, but soon is likely to become commonplace: TV Everywhere.

Cable, Telco and satellite television providers have been promoting the concept of TV Everywhere for the past year or so. Perhaps you are familiar with the commercials. A TV viewer witnesses a raging battle between two robotic-looking creatures in his kitchen. As one appears to get the upper hand and slams his opponent through the wall, the viewer pauses the action with his remote control and walks into an adjacent room, where he hits the play button and the fight resumes.

Commercials like these are building awareness among television viewers that they are no longer chained to one TV set to watch a show. Rather they now for the ability to not only resume programming they are watching from set to set as they walk through their homes, but also access and resume a program on their laptop computers, smartphones or media tablets that they started to watch on their TVs.

Now extend this "TV Everywhere" concept to the realm of commercial messages and take that every-access notion to the retail store aisle with a digital signage end cap. Imagine how brand awareness campaigns in the home could morph into a product-specific offer at the point of purchase.

As Walker of IMS Research put it in the press release: "The tools are available today to create a consistent campaign that can reach an audience multiple times while in transit through billboards, street furniture, metro displays, video walls and in-store kiosks, all the while becoming more targeted through mobile device interaction. This experience will culminate in the customer reaching a touch-enabled screen at the point-of-sale where inventory can be checked and an order placed."