When will Visix be purchased by someone like AMX, Extron, NEC or Scala? It's just a matter of time!

Inc. magazine today ranked Visix, a digital signage software provider, no. 3479 on its fifth annual Inc. 500|5000, an exclusive ranking of Americ's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy — America’s independent entrepreneurs. This is Visix’s 5th consecutive year appearing on the list. Visix is ranked 238 in the software industry category.

This year, Visix released its first fully localizable digital signage application for international deployments, a new interactive wayfinding product, a Twitter board digital sign, and bolstered their creative services and consulting efforts.

Go Visix earns place on annual Inc. 500|5000 list

by Dave Haynes, Editor, Sixteen:Nine

The kinds of people who keep debating what the digital signage industry should call itself are the same people who made you crazy at corporate offsite meetings as they turned those dreaded “Mission Statement” exercises into all-morning marathons.

These are people who like jumbling words together and then holding them up like they just modeled something out of clay.

They make me crazy.

The digital signage industry IS the digital signage industry. You can go ahead and conjure up some pretty, mind-blowing word-salad handle for it, but that is not going to change anything. It’s FAR from perfect. But Digital Signage is baked in.

So is Digital Out Of Home. That’s an even clunkier term, but the advertising agency people who control millions upon millions of media dollars have settled on it. There are ongoing attempts to call it something else -- notably, digital place-based advertising -- but that’s not really catching on. The agency people call it Digital Out Of Home (or DOOH) because they already call the billboard and poster business Out Of Home (as in people consuming media outside their homes), and the LED and LCD stuff now popping up like weeds is just the Digital extension. To them, it’s logical.

I write all this because everyday, these two handles are getting mishandled. Everyday, I read stuff talking about DOOH as though it is just another way of describing digital signage. Like they are interchangeable. Everyday, I see stuff about “digital signage advertising” and “DOOH networks” for universities and private companies.

Sheesh.

If you are talking about the software and technology that puts content on screens, and the ecosystem that drives and supports all that, you are talking about digital signage. If you are talking about networks that run alerts and safety messages on campuses, schedules in event centers, prices on menu boards and sales promos in stores, among MANY things, you are talking about digital signage networks.

If you are talking about the networks that exist officially (or less overtly) for the purposes of making money from selling advertising -- and about the eco-system that drives and feeds those efforts -- you are talking Digital Out Of Home.

It’s actually quite simple. So why it gets mixed up and misused so often completely escapes me. And this is not just my little semantics rant. The agency people are steadily demanding clarity from the ad network operators who want their money. When they see an industry driving around in cars and talking about their trucks, they just roll their eyes. They are demanding complicated stuff like solid, professionally validated audience metrics from networks... from an industry that can’t yet reliably get its name right.

Go More news on Digital Signage

Build it and they shall come…by boat, of course. 8,500 competitors, 100,000 spectators come for the sailing, to enjoy the parties and live entertainment, and to experience the atmosphere of UK’s 180-year old sailing regatta, Cowes Week 2011.

This year an 80 sq m LED screen on Cowes Esplanade faced out to sea for an inaugural open water cinema experience. And, by public voting, the film they wanted to see was: Master and Commander.

Hundreds of boats dropped anchor to enjoy the from-the-sea showing of Master and Commander. Cowes Radio transmitted the audio for the film was with small radios distributed to the on-board movie watchers in the boats.

The 80 sq m screen, erected by Big Screen Media, weighed in at 4.5 tons, required 90 modular panels, appropriate structural support and the expertise of a structural engineer.

Big Screen Media also supplied four large LED screens for Cowes Yacht Haven, Shepards Wharf, and The Parade. These screens were linked to sister company TKZ Media’s network of iZonescreens and a large number of other screens at key venues around Cowes and East Cowes.

For the first time ever, the official dedicated broadcast channel for Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week, EventTV, was distributed across this network of 40+ screens showing live footage of race results, daily highlights, news, and shore-side information.

Watch Slideshow of the Construction of the Sail-in Cinema

Go More on Cinema at Sea in Cowes

While digital signage created buzz at InfoComm, the Platt Retail Institute was finishing off its North American Digital Signage Index. And this report now shows Q1 faced the first drop in seven quarters!

On the show floor, companies like Black Box iCOMPEL saw large crowds gathered around their stand where the iCOMPEL platform recognized the members of those crowds and rotated advertising appropriately. Despite the state-of-the-art feature on display, iCOMPEL’s all-in-one integrated hardware/software solution mostly features an affordable digital signage solution. And that drew crowds at InfoComm.