Signagelive Now Has Screenfeed Inside

March 9, 2014 by Dave Haynes

A few digital signage software companies have talked in the last two or three years about their plans to make content marketplaces part of their offer, but I’ve not seen a lot that extends beyond some content widgets for weather and tickers.

Instead, the companies that do automated content feeds have been, by and large, complementary but separate services.

Now we’re starting to see some real integration, like what UK-based Signagelive is doing with Minneapolis-based Screenfeed. The companies have announced that Screenfeed real time content feeds are now built natively into Signagelive’s user experience.

From the news release:

To address the need for high quality, dynamically updated digital signage content, Signagelive has worked in partnership with Screenfeed to make their extensive portfolio of content feeds available to Signagelive users directly from within the Signagelive platform. Screenfeed provides over 75 different media feeds in both image and video formats; ranging from national news and sports, to localised traffic and weather updates.

Sample Screenfeed content feeds (38 of them) are available to all existing and new Signagelive users and can be found within the ‘Example Screenfeed Content’ folder in the Signagelive Playlist Creator. A one-click sign-up and login process allows Signagelive users to connect with their Screenfeed account to choose, configure and purchase the feeds they require directly from Screenfeed.

Once purchased, the Screenfeed content feeds are immediately available within the Signagelive Playlist Creator in the ‘My Screenfeed Content’ folder. Users can then drag and drop their Screenfeed content feeds on to the scheduling timeline and publish alongside other media content to their Signagelive powered displays.

In addition, Signagelive has added support for localized Screenfeed content feeds such as local traffic, weather and even localized sports.  To access this, users simply enter the Country, State and Zip or Postcode of a location within the Signagelive player attributes and the local weather ,for example, will be displayed on screen. A perfect solution for digital signage networks that are deployed across a variety of locations.

Says Jason Cremins, CEO of Signagelive: “Adding Screenfeed content within Signagelive provides our partners and customers with an extensive range of dynamic content feeds that they can ‘try and buy’ with one-click from with the Signagelive platform. Great regularly updated content is imperative to the success of a digital signage project and Screenfeed leads the way in providing content that turns a screen into a destination.”

Jeremy Gavin, CEO of Screenfeed adds:  “Using Screenfeed’s API, Signagelive has connected our cloud-based apps together to provide a seamless user experience for the network manager who is looking to use syndicated media as part of their content strategy. Users expect their software solution to make their jobs easier and give them powerful options – this is another example how Signagelive continues to use the power of the Cloud to deliver on those expectations.”

Signagelive is also working to integrate BlueFox and Seenspire feeds by summer and they will all be part of a content provider folder on the platform.

Again, this is not entirely new. I have seen other software platforms that have widgets and gadgets to call and display a weather feed or run a Media RSS news piece with a photo. The difference is, in many respects, how that stuff tends to have little curation (selection and tweaking by editors) and looks like it. The thing here is that Screenfeed and the other companies put much more of a premium on content and how it is presented.

Given that these APIs exist, and this sort of thing makes sense, I think you’ll see more cloud-based platforms do something like this. Certainly, the content feeds guys will be loving that.