The University of Minnesota has a new outdoor stadium on campus. TCF Bank Stadium, known as “The Bank” to students and fans, is the Gophers' new home for Big Ten football. It’s also home to the third-largest outdoor scoreboard in college football. The video board in the stadium's west end zone is the third-largest video board in all of college football, behind those at the University of Texas and University of Alabama stadiums. The screen spans 48 feet high and 108 feet wide. To help put this into scale, it’s comparable in size to the university’s basketball court in Williams Arena.

As a Golden Gopher football fan, season ticket holder and school alum, I find myself, along with the other 50,000 or so other spectators in attendance, frequently amused by the content played on the big screen.  Some of the entertaining content is being sent from members of the live crowd to the screen via their cell phones, each one hoping to achieve that coveted three seconds of fan fame. It got me thinking about Pic2Screen, Text2Screen and Poll2Screen, and some questions came to mind. 

Who programs the filter(s) for Pic2Screen and Text2Screen? How often do filters realistically need to be updated in order to effectively “manage” for inappropriate content? Is there any liability to screen owners for inappropriate content? 

As a marketer, my concern would be damaging the brand and/or customer relations. In building a text filter, I wouldn’t know all of the slang and hidden meanings behind the made up words and acronyms that GenY’ers use. I’d often find myself having to go to the “Urban Dictionary.”   I have found a variety of software companies who say they manage the filters for their clients, but…. wouldn’t it be nice if there was a filter “clearing house?"