Here at Digital Signage Expo there’s a lot of talk about revolution. You see it on banners, brochures and of course on digital signs. But for the most part, besides being a bit bigger, there’s not too much revolutionary stuff on display. Some new (largely unavailable) display technology. Some more advanced technology (more evolutionary). Some slightly less expensive digital sign hardware. But nothing too revolutionary.
Perhaps the biggest (not quite revolutionary) development of the show this year is the formation of the first potentially effective, independent, non-profit industry group, the Digital Signage Federation.
For some background, read my May post about BS. But essentially, the industry to date has consisted of a complicated web of trade shows (5 total? 6?), industry pubs/websites, sponsored white papers and an association or two that are connected to a trade show or publisher. So essentially, everything’s been “Pay to Play” — you’re a lead sponsor in the Digital Signage Association and you get prominent placement and coverage in an industry pub and win a lot of awards at trade shows, etc.
I have no problem with this system insofar as I like capitalism; however, ultimately, what it’s done is confuse customers as they can’t figure out what information sources are unbiased.
So, this is where it gets a bit complicated. The newly formed Federation is receiving seed capital from Digital Signage Expo in exchange for having DSE be the exclusive trade show of the Federation, which seems like a fair trade. It also seems like a good idea for an industry non-profit to not do a trade show, as they can tend to take over an organization’s focus.
Entere the Digital Signage Association, which, until this week, has been owned by NetWorld Alliance, which runs a bunch of websites, including DigitalSignageToday.com. Their response to the DSF?
LAS VEGAS – The Digital Signage Association announced today that its advisory board unanimously approved two initiatives:
The DSA will immediately be incorporated as a non-profit industry association, governed by an independent board of directors.
A task force has been assigned to secure proposals from professional trade show management companies to help establish a digital signage conference and trade show under the direction of the Digital Signage Association.
I’m not in the know with all the back-room stuff going on here, as in, it appears that the DSA’s action is in result to a perceived threat by the DSF/DSE combo. But clearly, starting ANOTHER trade show is not a good solution, it’ll just result in more customer confusion. And also clearly, having an independent, non-profit industry group is much better than a pay-to-play system. So at some point, ideally sooner rather than later, the DSF and DSA need to merge efforts, especially if they’re both non-profits now (we don’t need two).
But it’ll probably be awhile, as the vested interests in each are evidently not on the same page. And in the meantime we might gain another trade show. And more customer confusion.
A month ago, with Google’s quiet announcement of discontinuing support for IE6 as of March 1, 2010, I 
