• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, August 12, 2011

Digital out-of-home and Twitter have a lot in common: they are both relatively new media platforms, enabled by technological advances, whose audience continues to grow by leaps and bounds. So why not put them together?

That's the thinking behind a new offering from Visix, Inc., a digital signage software provider, which recently unveiled a "Twitter Board" and "Twitter Bulletin" among its new DOOH options and creative services. This will allow digital signage operators (and advertisers) to craft interactive DO strategies, engaging users directly be encouraging them to make their voice heard (well, Tweeted).

The new Visix signage offering centers on customized modules which employ Twitter's API, displaying tweets in a Flash file against an animated background -- and of course the Twitter bird is there too. Digital signage operators can customize the displays with their own colors and logo, as well as their Twitter address and QR tags.

Tonya Dennis, Visix's director of client services, explained: "Social media is a perfect contribution to digital signage because it creates a dialogue instead of just one-way communications -- people can view, follow or post to be a part of the process. This is just one of many new content products we'll be bringing to market."

Live tweeting to digital displays is one of those interesting applications that, frankly, never really occurred to me before I saw it done the first time. Anyone who has been to a MediaPost conference recently (I'll be at the Social Media Insider Summit at Lake Tahoe, August 17-20!) will have noticed the big screens displaying live, tweeted commentary from the audience -- a nifty application of the service, which allows audience members to register their opinions and pose questions during panel discussions, without having to disrupt the ongoing event. The moderator can then review the Twitter feed, after the discussion is done, to address questions and highlight points made by audience members.