Software – It’s Free Down Under
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
There are several digital signage vendors in Australia and New Zealand making a lot of waves (okay, okay, I will keep the puns to a minimum) both at home and outside of their own continent / islands.
As reported previously, Ryarc Media System, Sydney, Australia, have been involved in a number of deals in India (and elsewhere in Asia).
Closer to the UK, I understand that Ryarc have also started signing up Resellers and Distributors in Europe (including Radiant Ireland who are the distributor in the UK and Ireland)
See http://www.radiant-ireland.com/
Wallflowerglobal from Auckland, New Zealand has a number of activities in Asia also – and I will be reporting on some of them over the next week or so.
See http://www.wallflowerglobal.com/
The solution I wanted to discuss today though was Digital Recall.
See http://www.digitalrecall.com.au/
It’s an interesting offering as the digital signage software is completely free; free download, free to install, free to use.
Apart from “rumbletum”, which is the open source digital signage software offering, Digital Recall is the only free product out there in the market place (as far as I am aware).
A couple of points about the offering:-
- User uses own equipment – basic off the shelf hardware required
- User uses own Internet or LAN connection.
- User Manuals provide pretty detailed Set-up instructions
- Same output on multiple screens or independent output on different screens
- Seems pretty easy to use
- Small businesses, Schools and Universities seem to be early adopters and keen users
I am not sure I would go as far as describing this as a true Web 2.0 solution (it seems more freeware than anything else though please don’t let that nomenclature put you off) it does however seem to be incredibly functional.
Customers can purchase a number of additional paid options – however in my opinion this alone would de-classify Digital Recall as a Web 2.0 solution – ‘crippled’ software is not a concept that bodes well in the Web 2.0 world!
As I am keen on the component / niche model, what I REALLY like about this solution is the business model behind it. I think it is a model that will get a lot more focus over the next 6 months…
Digital Recall’s business is in essence “making money on creating custom content”. Yes, users of the software can and will do their own content but Digital Recall believe that their customers will go to them to help them create the best possible content for the network.
Unless the Digital Recall customer is incredibly experienced in Flash, it is a fair assumption that they will end up creating a totally inappropriate piece of content (even with templates, templates, templates you would NOT be surprised at the rubbish that inexperienced / pretend ‘creatives’ can put together)
Digital Recall’s USP in life then is like that of several other ‘content’ providers – the experience of bringing content, slide shows, products, brands, promotions and adverts to life in the Digital Signage world.
What I also like is that the Digital Recall folks are realistic about their charges for content – they make it cheap enough for their customers to want to use them. There are still unfortunately a number of Screen Network studios who try to charge silly prices thinking that they indeed have a captive customer base. If you price your content creation too high THEN your customers will do it themselves and do the network no justice whatsoever.
Digital Recall have a number of sample adverts up on their web site which are well worth a look.
So in summary then, one of the things that the Web 2.0 world has proven is that software can be free – Google of course will tell you it SHOULD be free and with Google (and their deep pockets) it is free!
In that perspective alone, Digital Recall may well be setting a Digital Signage trend that others will surely follow.
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