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.

It's no secret that all is not well at HP, as a fickle board of directors gives CEO Leo Apotheker his walking papers after just 11 months on the job, and former eBay boss Meg Whitman steps into the top spot. But it would be too bad if the well-publicized turmoil in the company's top ranks overshadowed its continued technological innovation, including in digital signage, where its new products are lowering prices (and the barrier to entry) for digital out-of-home advertising networks.

Part of the appeal of digital out-of-home signs is their potential for interactivity, which can be used to catch the attention of passersby in ways that static signs just can't. This week brought news of two new campaigns employing interactive DOOH signage to break through the visual clutter of everyday life.

Politics seems to permeate all areas of American life, and now that's even more true thanks to Access1 Media, a Fort Worth, Tex.-based digital out-of-home media company which is bringing political polling and messaging to kiosks around the country. The Access1 kiosks will help disseminate a candidate's message as well as capture real-time accurate poll results during political campaigns.

Clear Channel Communications has partnered with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum organization to raise awareness (and funds) for the memorial with a series of public service announcements which will run on its "Spectacolor SpecHD" digital billboard in Times Square, as well as on static and digital display surfaces around New York City and the metropolitan area. Clear Channel Outdoor will be joined by CBS Outdoor, Cemusa, Titan, and Van Wagner for the outdoor portion of the campaign.

With its proven ability to deliver brief, compelling messages to consumers on the go, digital out-of-home is a powerful tool for advertisers -- but also recommends itself for charitable causes seeking to raise awareness about urgent social causes. In this vein, a dozens of DOOH networks have banded together to create a collective, DOOHgood, to help nonprofits get their messages out by donating free, unsold ad space and producing video spots.

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.

One of the world's largest tech companies has identified digital out-of-home as a growth industry, and it wants in. This week saw Cisco unveil its new Enterprise Content Delivery System, which should make it easier to manage video content across a variety of platforms, execs said, while eliminating commons problems like delays in video playback, video interruptions, and pixilation.

Intel has unveiled a new digital out-of-home product for the retail environment, the Retail Interactive Fashion Experience, which allows shoppers to scroll through a particular store's inventory of clothing and accessories. The product is part of Intel's "Connected Store" concept, combining place-based digital displays with email and social functionality.

Digital billboards are using significantly less energy, on average, than they were four years ago, according to an analysis by the Louis Berger Group. That's good news for the digital out-of-home industry, since high energy consumption (which can result in excess heat, requiring even more energy for cooling) has been one of the main complaints leveled at the burgeoning medium by its critics. It could also make DO more appealing for advertisers by reducing costs, and for billboard owners by boosting profitability.