Content Design: Balancing Live Data with User Messaging
Posted on Wed, November 4, 2009
Incorporating live data such as financial market updates, sports scores, news headlines and local weather into your digital signage content is a great way to make your display a destination and keep your visitors entertained every time they pass by. Check out the enclosed graphic showing a creative design utilized by one of our university client to help them convey their message along with a nice mixture of real-time information to capture attention.
Many users question costs for licensed data because they can go grab similar information for free from Google or Yahoo. Why is that data free? Because those websites are trying to attract your traffic in pursuit of pay-for-click or advertising revenue. While those data services may be free to visitors someone is ultimately paying for the rights to display the information and if you read the website user terms many of them specifically say it is for personal use and not allowed for public display. Another concern with using “free” data from the web is that it could be unreliable or go away at any time. What is to prevent that website from changing their design and removing the data service you are using.
In summary using live data is a great way to make your display stand out, just make sure you use an authorized source so you don’t wake up to find a key element of your content is missing.
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