How Capital Networks built a loyal ‘Audience’ for Android in the digital signage market

The Android operating system is often associated with the smartphone market, but a Canadian firm is using the open source software to make waves in the world of digital-out-of-home signage.

Capital Networks, which is headquartered in Markham, Ont., recently introduced version two of its Audience for Android software platform. Powered by Android, the Audience for Android media player and software bundle is marketed as a lower cost alternative to traditional Windows-based digital signage deployments. But price is just the beginning of the advantages Android offers, according to Jim Vair, vice-president of business development at Capital Networks.

Jim Vair, Capital Networks

“The sheer price point of Android is attractive, but only if it works and is reliable and scalable,” says Vair. “In digital signage, companies are looking to deploy more displays in more places. So, in a Windows-based environment, you can have one or two screens around the office, but if you introduce Android, you can deploy five or eight for the same money.”

The content management and display system features the ability to support multi-zone displays up to 1080p, video in a window, landscape and portrait orientations, touch interactivity, and HTML5 support as well as native support for portrait aspect ratio.

“We have some kiosk-type presentations in malls and corporate lobbies that lend themselves to portrait aspect ratio rather than landscape, and version 2 can handle that,” says Vair.

The updated version also takes advantage of the improved specifications of the hardware devices with which it is paired.

“The software has always been able to accommodate things like aspect ratios, and now the hardware is starting to (catch up),” says Vair.

Although Vair says Android technology in the digital signage market is still in its infancy, Capital Networks has deployed more than 300 installations of Audience for Android, and many of those clients are evaluating version 2.

CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster uses Audience to power its CBC News Express broadcast service to major airports across the country. The Audience platform enables the CBC to present the latest video content and live data feeds for up to the minute local and national news, weather, business and sports updates to thousands of travellers each day.

With offices located across six continents, Open Text installed Audience for Android as an element of its corporate communications network, which can distribute 24-hour information to employees spread across the globe. The other essential component was that each location would have the ability to display a combination of hyper-local, location-specific information as well as global information to be displayed at all locations.

Capital Networks’ research and development team is working to deliver features that will enable a higher degree of interactivity between personal mobile devices and large, public displays, say Vair.

“Near-field communications is something that’s available today – in the Android phones,” he says. “It will replace the QR codes, which never really took off.  When someone sees content on the screen and touches it, they can transfer that content to their personal device.”

Hospitals, universities and retail environments are poised to take full advantage of NFC, according to Vair, because it will allow them to measure the degree of interactivity between their constituents and the digital signage.

“We want to enhance and improve the integration of the mobile device with digital signage, and this verification that people are engaging with digital signage is a valuable tool in measuring the effectiveness of the content,” he says.