I just read an interesting article that appeared a couple of days ago in the New York times. It was talking about the tracking devices that are being installed by TruMedia on the Adspace Network. They are rolling with a bunch of them on the Adspace Network across the country.
The devices are very useful. Essentially what they do is measure traffic and are able to tell what the gender is to a high degree of accuracy for people walking by the digital screens. The great thing is that the information is not only stored, but reported back so the company real-time. It is able to get an accurate reading of how many, who, what, when etc. for each screen locale. This makes the measurement problems for ROI and traffic common among digital signage networks decrease substantially. There’s one problem: people are skeptical.
It’s almost like the people who saw their house posted on Google “street view” and wanted to sue Google. People do not like to be invaded. And although the company claims that actual photographs are not taken and reported back, the digital screens seem like a type of “big brother.” So, if you’re ever walking by a digital signage screen and have an uneasy feeling like you’re being followed, don’t worry about it in the slightest. It’s probably just a crowd tracking device. I guess if you really want to mess with big brother you can just make faces. Who knows it might think you’re a woman if you scrunch your face together enough. Then maybe the screen will report back some lingerie images. Who knows. It may be worth a try.
Tags: crowd tracking devices, Digital Signage, digital signage networks, digital signage roi, google, Jennifer 8. Lee, New York, New York City, Programs, Server farm, Television, The New York Times
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