• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, September 30, 2011

With more and more people accessing social media sites from mobile devices, and technology allowing easier interaction between mobile devices and digital signage, it only makes sense to close the loop by bringing social media to digital signage. Recent months have seen a series of new social media-digital signage mash-ups from innovative digital signage manufacturers, with the latest coming from X2O Media of Montreal.

X2O unveiled a new set of templates for displaying content from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook on its digital signage screens, which can be customized for its Xpresenter Player using its PowerPoint-based authoring tool and NITRO graphics engine. Options include full-screen templates, sidebar graphics and graphics in the lower third of the screen; in addition to being compatible with existing social media platforms, the templates can also be adapted to new, emerging social media sites.

X2O Media president and CEO David Wilkins said the features provided "numerous exciting possibilities, including making social media information available on video walls, interacting with it on touch-enabled screens, and making it available on mobile devices using QR codes."

A few months ago I wrote about new social media offerings for digital signage from Visix, Inc., including a "Twitter Board" and "Twitter Bulletin," which allow digital signage operators (and advertisers) to craft interactive DO strategies, engaging users directly by 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.