• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 11, 2012

Irish firm Betapond is making digital signage in retail environments personally interactive for mobile Facebook users, with an assist from Intel’s Core i7 Platform for digital signage.

The Betapond product uses QR codes and SMS to connect a shopper’s smartphone with digital signage in the retail environment. Using the Facebook app, brand marketers and retailers can execute a number of promotions combining the digital signage and mobile social platforms.

For example, they can offer shoppers the chance to win a prize for taking a short survey, download coupons, enter a treasure hunt, etc. Customers can also complete e-commerce transactions and post social recommendations from within the store.

Afterwards, the brand marketers and retailers can continue to engage with participating consumers -- and eventually their friends -- through Facebook to drive additional traffic and sales.

Of course, Betapond isn’t the only company integrating social and DOOH. Prominent practitioners include LocaModa, which has brought DOOH apps for Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and other social networks (location-based and otherwise) and a number of big DOOH networks nationwide. Last August, Visix, Inc., a digital signage software provider, unveiled a “Twitter Board” and “Twitter Bulletin” among its new DOOH options and creative services.

This is just the latest in a series of DOOH adoptions for Intel, whose Audience Impression Metrics Suite has been integrated into a number of digital signage systems over the last couple of months. Late January, InWindow Outdoor announced a pilot program to create fixed “experience stations” in malls and hotel locations nationwide using Intel’s AIM. Around the same time, Provision Interactive Technologies announced that it was integrating AIM into its 3D holographic kiosk displays, and in February DS-IQ tapped AIM for its Retail Media Platform.