RedPost is a small start-up software, and out of necessity, hardware company, based in Goshen, Indiana. The company first came to national attention thanks to its DIY digital picture frame kit, which includes a 19-inch LCD screen, a mini PC with wireless networking capabilities, and Linux, making the kit totally configurable and a tinkerer’s dream. But, it turns out, the digital frame kit is just a means to an end. The plan, according to CEO Eric Kanagy, is to develop the software backbone to create low-cost digital signage networks. Kanagy recently took some time to speak with us about RedPost’s genesis, future, and its commitment to sustainable practices.
Tell me about how you decided to start RedPost. What was the impetus?
What it came down to was that I couldn’t find anyone else doing what I was looking for. I had looked at this whole idea about 4 years ago and LCD prices were too high at that point. I was working for a local non-profit arts organization and was trying to think of ways that we could get the word out about the theater that we were doing and so looked at building a system like what is now RedPost/Goshen. Then, it was far too expensive.
This past fall, I started looking at it again … (and found that) LCD prices were half of what they were and then started looking into the digital signage market itself. Everything was very expensive, very proprietary, closed. Nothing was really what I would want in a digital signage system, which would be able to do whatever I wanted.
What was your background before starting the company?
I was a computer science major in college and I worked a summer for Transmeta out in Silicon Valley right at the height of the boom, right before the bubble burst. I worked for another tech company, a start-up, in Charlottesville, Virginia. I was developing software, web-based software. I have a pretty heavy tech background.
How many people are at RedPost right now?
There are three of us. Myself and two software designers.
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We’ve got an interview coming up next week with Eric Kanagy, the CEO of RedPost, the company that we’ve blogged about before here that offers a DIY wireless picture frame kit. Something that I knew less about prior to the interview is that RedPost isn’t really a hardware company — they’re a digital signage company that sells hardware.
After talking to Eric, I’ve been thinking about digital signage. I wrote in this space a few months ago about the benefits that wireless digital picture frames could offer to tradeshow exhibitors. But the digital signage market goes far beyond that. It encompasses menus at fast-food restaurants, arrival and departure displays at airports, local information kiosks at hotels, displays in banks, and much more.
There are many companies already operating in the digital signage space. A quick Googling turns up a handful of interesting ones on the first page or so:
3M is, of course, the biggest name that my Googling offers up. Their Digital Signage division offers its clients a combination of consulting, hardware, software, and support to deploy their digital signage networks and content.
The other two companies, Navori and Helius, are new to me.
Navori offers some interesting features, including the ability to play media types like video, Flash, and PowerPoint. They complement these features with touchscreens and RFID options. They don’t, however, seem to offer wireless networking features.
Helius, on the other hand, does offer wireless networking and provides content that will sound familiar to FrameChannel users — news, weather, and sports feeds.
As far as I can tell from their websites, all three companies require customers to use proprietary systems, servers, and software to operate their digital signage networks. When you combine proprietary equipment with custom consulting, I suspect that these networks must be pretty expensive to design and install (one analysis I found suggests that the cost of operating a single digital sign for three years could be over $12,000).
When I look at that figure, and at RedPost’s $550 price for their DIY frame kit, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t an opportunity here.
Many current digital signage offerings combine proprietary software with expensive plasma displays. It seems to be that there’s an opportunity for a smart, lean digital frame company to apply the open technology and lessons of digital frames to digital signage.
This kind of solution could use much lower-cost LCD displays (a couple hundred dollars vs. over $2,000 for a plasma screen), RSS feeds, wireless networking, and open web technologies to push content to a network of frames. A web management tool would need to be created to manage and display the content. Some more standards for frame software and hardware might also need to be developed to smooth out this process.
I’d wager that this kind of digital sign network wouldn’t be robust enough at first to replace many current digital sign installations. The really powerful features might need to be built as the network grows. But I think it would appeal to a whole new market, to businesses that are attracted to the technology but don’t have the budget to spend $12,000 on a single sign.
I suspect a smart digital frame company could create a success business here. That frame company could be RedPost. It could be someone we haven’t yet heard of. But if this kind of digital sign network appears, we might see a lot more digital signs a lot sooner than we expect.
I recently attended a tradeshow in Providence, RI, and it was full of very sad sights indeed, at least from a marketing perspective. There were lots of folks in sharp-looking suits standing in booths and hoping that those of us walking the aisles might stop to talk to them. Instead of trying engage us and draw us into their booths, they just stood there, hoping. And many of booths were so drab that we passed by without a second thought.
One of the biggest challenges at tradeshows is cutting through the noise and clutter of the event to get people interested in what you’re offering. I’ve worked tradeshows and felt that pain. It’s that need to get attention that generates cheesy giveaways, free massages, and booth babes.
But this tradeshow got me thinking: what about wireless digital picture frames?
It’s common these days for some tradeshow booths to include TVs. Since eyes see, naturally drawn to TVs, showing presentations or short films is a great way to draw in attendees.
But TVs are expensive and heavy and they can’t connect to the web. If digital picture frames, especially really big ones, get more affordable, digital picture frames could become a big part of tradeshow booths.
The ways in which exhibitors can use digital picture frames for presentations and in-booth art are pretty obvious, I’d think. They replace TVs or laptops to show your PowerPoint slides. They show video related to your business. Fine.
But what if you had an Internet-connected frame at your tradeshow booth? That could offer some neat possibilities.
- If you were exhibiting at a construction tradeshow, you could impress attendees with up-to-the-minute photos from your construction sites.
- Marketers could easily demo dynamic portfolios in their booths.
- Photographers could – well, that’s obvious, I think.
- And branded digital picture frames with pre-loaded content could make great giveaways and booth prizes, too.
The obstacles to this are the same as in other areas that digital frames could operate: the cost and size of the frames.
But when it comes to tradeshows, there’s another obstacle, maybe even a bigger one than those two. The cost of Internet access.
A day’s worth of Internet access at a tradeshow can easily run a few hundred dollars or more, substantially increasing the cost of exhibiting. With that kind of cost, it can be hard to justify the money for Internet access unless there’s a truly compelling way to tie the Internet into your tradeshow lead-generation plan. After all, the wireless frame doesn’t talk to prospects or grab business cards for you.
As prices come down, we’ll likely start to see more wireless digital picture frames at tradeshows. And as they become more common, marketing companies will become more comfortable with them, leading to innovative and exciting uses. Hopefully they’ll start showing up soon and make the next tradeshow I visit more dynamic.
