We just received and email from Brad @ Hutchings Software talking about their new digital signage product that translates a stream of tweets into updates for a digital sign. Their desktop software (Tweet Your Sign) is free and just requires an inexpensive Mac or PC connected to an LCD screen.
We haven’t tested the software, but it certainly looks like it does the job (and you can’t argue with the price). You configure the software to display tweets from one or more accounts. Then, to update the sign, you simply update your twitter status.
We can see lots of great use cases for product including displaying tweets from a conference or presentation, in an office environment, or even a retail Pet shop (see above). It’s certainly an easy and affordable way to keep the sign updated from just about any internet-enabled device.
What are the drawbacks? Probably the biggest drawback is that the configuration of the software needs to be done on a sign-by-sign basis. Not really practical for a large network of signs. The software also offers some basic design customization, but it won’t really be enough for high impact visuals.
#1 by Brad Hutchings on December 4th, 2009
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Thanks so much for the write-up… First one to make it into the Google search. You raise some very good questions at the end, one of which I can answer
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We have the concept of “sign documents”. To deal with power outages and the like, TYS opens the last sign it had open when you start. Unless you have a “.tys” document in the same folder as the “.exe”. Then we’ll just open that one. So if you were doing a large network of the same sign, you could create a master drive image, then image it over the network. Voila.
Thanks again for the nice write-up!
-Brad