Dave Etherington, chief strategy officer at Intersection [1], lead company on the LinkNYC [2] project, was peppered with the most questions from the floor of any speaker after bringing the audience at the DailyDOOH Media Summit up-to-date on that ‘connected’ project during London Digital Signage Week.
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“Today, more than 50% of the population lives in cities, and that figure will be 66% by the year 2050,” said Etherington. “We (ie. the DOOH industry) can become a vital part of the Smart Cities evolution. Cities are becoming the place to be, and the amount of data we are gathering today is likely to increase a thousand-fold.
“Life is becoming more connected while cities are facing challenges such as an aging infrastructure. Intersection is a technology, design and media company committed to transforming the urban space, and where we build must have a community because the aim is to better the lives of people.”
There was major curiosity from the London crowd about the LinkNYC project which we’ve written about many times. In short, LinkNYC will eventually be comprised of 10,000 x 9-ft. high (Link) units placed across the five New York boroughs. The units have Wi-Fi allowing people to make phone calls for free anywhere in the US. They have recharging outlets, keyboards, city information and much more, carry Gimbal beacons, and include screens which can carry advertising. They are being built at no cost to taxpayers and will generate more than $500 million in revenue for the City over the first 12 years from advertising on the screens.
There are currently more than 150 units already in place, with 500 expected to be deployed by July.
“We have 15,000 people signing up every day for the free Wi-Fi and have had 3 million users already on the units currently up in Manhattan,” said Etherington.