This template also offers dynamic features like:

Duration:  Allows you to set the playback duration of the content.

Color:  Allows you to choose the font color for the top and bottom text.

To use these features, go to the Advanced section when Customizing your template.

What can you do with this new template? Take a look!

For example, this new 3 panel design template offers a 16:9 image area, extended weather forecast on the left, RSS on the bottom, and logo on the bottom right.

Take a look at the new options available in the Advanced section:

• Image Duration.  The image is the focus of this design template and this advanced setting allows you to set the playback duration for the image.  For example, setting the image duration to 60 seconds will display the image for the full 60 seconds while the weather and RSS content update throughout the 60 second duration.
• Weather Item Duration.  This design template provides the extended weather forecast.  This is a seven day forecast with high and low temps for each day.  This advanced setting controls the duration of each day in the forecast.
• RSS Item Duration.  This design template will play up to 15 RSS items.  This advanced setting controls the duration of each RSS item.

Search Terms

To find this and other design templates with configurable duration, go to “Create Content” and search for “dynamic duration“:

To find design templates that provide more flexible text sizing search for “dynamic text”:

The End Result

In the design template on the left below, note the size of the word “SALE” in the top left price tag. After entering longer text in this price tag, the size of the text automatically adjusts to fit within the price tag:

Also, in the design template on the left below, note the size of the bottom right price tag with the “$139” price. After entering longer text in this price tag, the size of the text stays the same and the width of the price tag automatically adjusts to fit the text:

Stayed tuned for many more dynamic design templates.

Enjoy!!

A brand new feature is also introduced with this design template:

• Logo Toggle.  You can now toggle the logo panel visibility. Logos are common in design templates so the ability to toggle makes the design template more flexible and your content easier to maintain.

To use this new feature, go to the Advanced section when Customizing your design.

Another new design template released this week is an improved full screen RSS, background image, and logo on the bottom right. The logo toggle feature is also available in this new design template.

There are three brand new features introduced with this template:

• Dynamic Items. You can control how many RSS items to play (i.e. 1 – 20 items).
• Dynamic Duration. You can set the duration for each RSS items (i.e. 10 – 60 seconds).
• Color Choice. You can choose the font color from a color picker.

These three new features significantly improve flexibility and customization of RSS content to better meet customer needs.

To use these new features, go to the Advanced section when Customizing your design.

Yet another new design template released this week is a full screen text, background image, and logo on the bottom right. The logo toggle, dynamic duration and color choice features are also available in this new design template.

Enjoy!

Users attempting to log in to ScreenScape.NET should use the same credentials to log in to their equivalent ScreenScape.COM account here.


All ScreenScape.NET displays will now automatically redirect to their ScreenScape.COM equivalent. (e.g. http://entertainment.screenscape.net => http://entertainment.screenscape.com)


If you are a .NET account holder and have not yet created content on .COM, this is a necessary step to make your .COM Display operational. Watch this video to learn how.

ScreenScape.net = ScreenScape.com

If you experience any difficulty with your Display during this transition, please reboot your media player – this will resolve most issues. You can also contact us for assistance under the subject “ScreenScape.com transition”, or review more detailed information here.

Using ScreenScape, a simple computer and an HDTV you can quickly set up a powerful visual aid to welcome your guests and enhance your 4sqday gathering. Also, by joining the 4sqday group (on ScreenScape), you can automatically receive content updates directly to your screen from the official organizers of 4sqday and thus participate in a live global link-up of foursquare day event sites!

This is a new kind of simulcast of the location-based services variety…and who knows where it could go! In 2011 we had 14 locations participate. In 2012 there were over fourty. With your help we can drive that number even higher!

Learn more

• For a quick primer and some background on the event please visit last year’s blog entry.
• You can learn more about the event and how to participate in the global link-up by visiting the 4sday blog here.
• You can learn more about ScreenScape and how to get set up by visiting our Support Portal or by visiting our Youtube Channel.

Tips & Tricks

Once you get your account on ScreenScape set up, here’s some tips and tricks to getting great content on your displays right away.

Keep it fresh! Use any of our YouTube templates to add your YouTube Channel. That way when you update your channel with the latest videos, your display will be automatically updated.
If you are taking photos of your live event, pop them into a service that supports MRSS and use one of our MRSS templates to automatically update your display as you add new photos. You can use services such as Flickr, ScreenFeed, Photo Bucket as your MRSS source.

Also be sure to add the Foursquare template to remind people to check into your location!

To get you in the mood here’s the live ScreenScape display that’s in our lobby which we’ve pimped out for 4sqday. Hopefully this will spur some creative juices out there!

Finally, follow us on twitter to see how others are using ScreenScape on 4sqday.

From all of us at ScreenScape…Happy 4sqday Everyone!

The Challenge

“In order to be successful in the salon business, like any service business, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of onsite marketing,” says Michael Muia, owner of Michael’s Hair Salon in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

In over twenty-five years in the business Michael has spent thousands of dollars in graphic design fees and printing costs to try to educate his clients and engage them with beautiful visuals while they visit his salon.

The ScreenScape Solution

All that changed with the introduction of a new visually-rich retail marketing tool called ScreenScape. ScreenScape is an online software tool Michael uses to quickly populate digital screens inside his salon with beautiful images of hair product and educational messages featuring his latest in-store promotions.

Michael is emphatic when it comes to the simplicity of ScreenScape. “ScreenScape is easy-to-use software for savvy retail marketers who want to engage their customers with brilliant high-definition video but don’t have the budget to pay graphic designers or videographers thousands each year to do it. With ScreenScape, I can do it. And if I can do it, anybody can do it!”

Watch this video to see how easy it is to add content to your ScreenScape display

Business Enablement

Wella, The Salon Professional Division of P&G introduced ScreenScape to Michael as a means to lift sales.

“We are always happy to help our salon partners and we see ScreenScape as a real business enabler. When one of our salons joins ScreenScape they can easily subscribe to our professional content that shows off the latest Sebastian, Wella or Nioxin product in full high definition video. By creating and curating these videos and additional product messaging on our end, on an ongoing basis, we are able to enhance the salon experience while saving our stylists thousands in the process.” – Jeannette Keir, Commercial Leader for Wella, The Salon Professional Division of P&G, Canada.

Enhancing the Customer Experience

Professional salon owners use ScreenScape for more than just video and product messaging. By choosing from hundreds of templates, any user of ScreenScape can create and post their own custom messaging. By promoting your services, on sale merchandise and informing every customer about the exciting things happening at your salon, you can turn ScreenScape into a retail marketing engine that lifts sales while enhancing the salon experience for your customers.

Read more of the Wella, The Salon Professional Division of P&G case study here.

Scheduled Blackouts

Leading up to this permanent shutdown, users of .NET will be temporarily unable to log in to the system. These blackout periods will occur this Tuesday and Friday between 9am and 1pm EST. Venue displays will continue to operate normally during this time.

Blackout: Tuesday April 9, 9am-1pm EST

Blackout: Friday April 12, 9am-1pm EST

Update your Content

If you are a .NET user and haven’t updated your .COM content, this is a required step before using the new .COM system. Watch this video to learn how.

Permanent Shutdown April 15th

On April 15th, the .NET system will be permanently shut down. All venue displays still pointing to screenscape.net (e.g. mydisplay.screenscape.net) will be automatically redirected to their .COM equivalent (e.g. mydisplay.screenscape.com). All users attempting to login to the .NET system will be redirected to equivalent accounts on ScreenScape.COM.

Please contact us if you have any questions about this transition.

A network-centric approach

“Amongst the potential solutions we reviewed, ScreenScape offered a higher level of functionality and was very competitive on total cost of ownership. What really appealed to us as a credit union and cooperative is ScreenScape’s unique network-centric approach. This offers MSCU the ability to enhance our signage with content from our community partners,” says Frank Chisholm, marketing manager at MSCU.

On time and on budget

Beyond delivering a ‘state of the art’ platform, ScreenScape also played an instrumental role in getting our branch locations operational on time and within budget. We had a very tight four week deadline and were absolutely impressed by the speed with which all eight branches were operational. The ScreenScape Client Services team, working in conjunction with Tech9, exceeded our expectations in terms of knowledge, project management and responsiveness.”

Tech 9, a ScreenScape-certified partner, has a team of experts that can professionally deploy and manage all the physical equipment needed to power a digital signage network.

A growing trend in retail financial services

“ScreenScape has been helping financial institutions to more effectively engage their customers during visits to their local branch,” said Kevin Dwyer, President & CSO of ScreenScape. “It’s gratifying to see that financial institutions such as MSCU, Libro Financial, Consolidated Credit Union and many others see the value in using ScreenScape to educate, inform and communicate directly with their members where it matters most, inside their branch.”

To hear directly from more ScreenScape Customers visit our Youtube Channel.

The ScreenScape solution is designed from the ground up for large distributed networks. Many of our networks are made up of central Group managers who collaborate with dozens or hundreds of Venue managers at the local level. Our ongoing challenge is to introduce new features that strike the right balance between centralized control for the Group manager and empowerment of Venues at the local level.

Today we added yet another feature designed to help strike that balance. “Venue Preference” is a new tool to help automate the publishing of Weather and News content at the local level. It doubles as a handy default setting for Venues and a power-user tool for Groups.

For Venues, it saves on repetitive tasks like defining local weather settings, or recalling the URL string of your blog’s RSS feed. More here:

For Groups, it provides a way to publish a single Content item to 100′s of locations with auto-customized weather and news for every Venue. More here:

We hope you like it!

Last week, ScreenScape announced the retirement date for its older ScreenScape.net service. Following this announcement we received many template requests from members migrating from screenscape.net to screenscape.com (how to here), who were looking to retain a “screenscape.net look and feel” with their new screenscape.com displays. Today’s template release is in response to their requests.

The new templates follow the tried-and-true “3 panel” approach to presenting information on a screen. With 3-panel, a Theatre panel, a Sidebar, a Ticker, and sometimes a Logo are incorporated into the screen layout. The Sidebar options alternate between animated weather forecasts and RSS feeds. The Theatre panel uses assets from the new screenscape.com Video asset library, in 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios.

These templates are available to all ScreenScape Members as part of the basic service, no additional fees apply.

To try them out, log in to your ScreenScape.com account, select Create Content, and in the Step 1 (“Choose Design”) check out the second page of the Template library.

We hope you find these new templates useful. As always, feedback welcome.