What’s in a name?
There have been many names for this here industry over the years, namely:
- digital signage
- DOOH = Digital Out Of Home
- SIP = Screens In Public
- Captive audience networks
- Place-based media
And many more. All of them suck. I prefer “digital signs” over digital signage, as I hate that “-age” append-age. A great discussion going in between the digital sign blog-o-sphere, started by this essay on BroadSign’s blog:
Of all these terms, the only one to really stick through the better part of two decades is the term digital signage. The new kid on the block seems to be digital out-of-home and to its credit, it is the only alternative to digital signage that has really stuck.
And Barnaby over at Screens.tv:
This sector clearly isn’t part of TV, and until interaction is almost universal it’s mischievous at best to classify it under digital interactive or other umbrella terms for Internet and mobile. Yet what is undeniably true is that it is entirely out-of-home, and this is one of the few characteristics that unite what Parisien points out are an extremely diverse bunch of networks and applications.