We first wrote back in December 2010 that Showreel TV claimed to work with “selected premier salons across the UK to generate the latest in salon entertainment” and they also claimed “Showreel TV supply, install and maintain Hotel Information Systems that give hotel residents up to date information regarding the hotel and its amenities”.

Since that time complaints from advertisers – all of them it seems small businesses wanting to use the network to promote their services have been coming in.

Those (comments) that we have verified coming from legitimate email addresses and linked to a proper business we have posted.

Some comments have pointed out similarities (not proven) to two other companies that have received similar bad press.

Showreel TV’s contact address on their web site, 180 Piccadilly, London is no doubt designed to impress but is in fact a virtual office (nothing wrong with that per se but the whole digital screen networks in hair salons in the UK has been a murky business for many years – even before i-vu was around).

One thing is for sure and that’s it makes the industry look bad and those small buinesses who have had a bad experience trying to get their ad up on a network won’t be returning in a hurry.

Jameson, an opinionated South African national joins Industry Weapon with over a decade’s copywriting and branding experience at some of the world’s top creative ad agencies. He began his writing career at TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris – ranked the ‘World’s 10th Most Creative Agency’ by AdAge in the year he joined – in South Africa.

Tenures at the likes of Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi, Y&R, and AKQA followed in cities as diverse as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg and San Francisco. During this time, Jameson gained recognition and picked up awards from the London International Advertising Festival, New York Festivals, Cannes International Advertising Festival, the Eagle Print Awards and Loerie Awards.

Jameson has also served on the judging panels of both the Summit International Awards and the Spokane Advertising Federation.

Over and above writing marketing communication materials for Industry Weapon, Jameson will also be spearheading the company’s PR and social media initiatives.

Apparently it had been off all day. As it happens of course RAM Vision use BroadSign which is good at proof of play so the logs should be able to confirm the down time.

These ‘failures’ do not seem to be one-offs and whilst all networks may have the odd screen go blank it’s strange surely for the entire network to be off?

We are only in February but since Christmas we have already written about downtime at The Oracle (Reading) over the New Year period (via twitter, and that was one complete half of a network) and only a few weeks ago with regard Clapham Shop stop (all screens off though the amount of down time is disputed – see post).

“Visix is very excited to partner with VEL,” says Trey Hicks, vice-president of sales, Visix. “They are experts in information integration solutions and their data integration capabilities enable us to tackle demanding contact center applications. We believe this partnership will allow us to grow into other data-centric applications in the future.”

VEL will provide middleware and data integration capabilities that enable Visix to incorporate high-end real-time data display for its digital signage clients. Visix will provide VEL customers with digital signage systems that combine VEL’s real-time data with everyday organizational communications, leveraging a very scalable enterprise solution for visual communications.

“We’ve selected Visix because of its digital signage technology advancements, system scalability, ease of use, and its breadth of experience in working with all industry segments,” says Andrew Candreva, VEL president and COO.

VEL has been providing real-time visual messaging solutions to Fortune 1000 companies, governments and education campuses since 1979.

Visix designs, develops and supports a suite of browser-based digital signage products that allows users to create, manage and schedule organizational communications from anywhere and to deliver messages and media to virtually any endpoint. The company offers digital signage software, meeting room signs, and applications for targeted messaging to desktops and portable devices.

The companies will present a complimentary webinar on March 1/12 – Selecting the Right Digital Signage Technology – for invited guests of Fortune 1000 companies. This is the first in a series of cooperative ventures planned for 2012.

We knew the show was going to be big – with 153,000 attendees milling around Las Vegas it was nearly twice the size of the biggest industry shows we’ve looked at in the past. The difference with this one – it being consumer focused and not mainly business to business – was the widespread attention, especially from mainstream media, and especially from media in the tech world.

Among the large number of users who tweeted (nearly 112,000), there was quite a variation in the activity seen from them. In the chart we can see that 80% of people only tweeted one or twice during the show, with only the top 9% (the light blue segment) really active, tweeting 5 times or more.

With that level of activity came a lot of spam, largely from users (human or otherwise) tweeting the same message over and over in the hope of winning some give-away competition or other.

This made it more difficult to follow the main stream without being inundated. Two well-known tech blogs, TechCrunch and Engadget, adopted a different strategy, as both used their own show-related hashtags and didn’t use the official one (#CES) at all apart from once in a retweet from someone else.

As well as the differences, there were some interesting similarities in the way #CES unfolded compared to shows we’ve looked at previously.

The full report can be downloaded from the Amazon Kindle Store in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

Remember that if you don’t have an actual Kindle device, Kindle reader apps can be downloaded for Android, iPhone/iPad, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry in the US and for PC and Mac on Desktops.

They’re also showcasing collaborative software for group display applications powered by DisplayNote and Anacore’s Synthesis on 42- to 46-inch, 55-inch, and 65-inch LCD flat panel monitors in standard and narrow bezel widths multi-touch displays.

There will also be, we quote, “amazing huge-screen TVs on display, too” but we saw enough of those to last a life time at #CES a few weeks back.

Omnivex Moxie provides users with a powerful and flexible software platform for managing their digital signage needs.

The Norwegian displays provide bus and train schedules along with other local information. A driving factor behind the installation was the need to improve accessibility for those with disabilities, and this has been achieved through the use interactive displays which support communication for the hearing and vision impaired.

The project was developed and implemented by Rom Eiendom AS, one of the largest property companies in Norway, with support from local systems integrator, Hatteland Solutions.

“Our goal has been that Lillehammer would be the most modern and contemporary public transport hub,” says Paul Berger, CEO, Rom Eiendom.

The modern coaching facility coves all the needs of future travelers when it comes to waiting rooms, information, services and accommodation. Geir Ove Finstad from Hatteland Solutions has been working with Rom Eiendom to identify the best technologies for future transportation hubs since 2009.

“This project has proven again that with the right technology you can remove barriers and make accessibility equal for everyone” says Finstad.

Their web site url http://www.seesawnetworks.com no longer resolves. We know that there were a couple of people sniffing around the IP that they had but we don’t believe that there were any bidders for the company as a whole.

Salitek will be demonstrating their Salitek SAL-MPDP60C2 in a 4X3 array powered by Hiperwall with media by Saddle Ranch Digital.

Immediately before joining Immedia, Damian lived (for the past three years) in Singapore, where as Asia Pacific Managing Director of The Affinity House, was responsible for putting together strategic partnerships between some of the world’s most exclusive brands.

Prior to this Damian was Business Development Director and one of the founding partners of the ABC Media Group (now Retail Marketing International), Group Commercial Director of Fitness First Holdings and Commercial Director for Hilton Group plc.