We like to think we are usually the first to cover new networks and new initiatives – you heard it here first sort of thing!!!
We covered this iCan innovation [1] a fortnight ago but have just heard that they have cemented a deal with the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper. The device itself is not that much different from the spinnXS we featured in late January [2] – we haven’t touched an iCan but have a spinnXS – to us it looks like the latter is the nicer device.
What ICA Network Solutions have done with the iCan in this instance is bundle together device, content, network and possibly some 3rd party media sales – if they ‘niche and scale’ they may be onto something but we sense that they are engineers and not entrepreneurs.
There are currently 10 units installed at locations around Horsham and Brighton in West Sussex but we are told that there are agreements in place to set up the iCans in 500 further venues, all of them newsagents – including locations in London, Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester (and are expected to be installed within the next four months)
John Rowley, Head of Sales and Development at ICA believes that the product has real potential in many retail and high footfall environments, such as shopping malls, airports, train stations, leisure centres, pubs bars and clubs – he may be right but there is and will be an awful lot of competition for eyeballs and screen products in these environments already!
ICA Network Solutions tell us that using the c360tv network (that links the iCan’s together) the Daily Mail will broadcast live headlines to each store.
Even with the Daily Mail [3] as an advertising partner there is competition from Newsquest and ComtechM2M in this area as we wrote about back in December 2007 [4]
The iCans themselves are three-foot pods based on LED technology – Tri-colour LED’s are rotated to create virtual pixels, which creates a full colour cylindrical screen 300mm in diameter by 500mm high.