Since beginning this column last fall, I’ve attempted to point to trends, analysis and reports that gauge the development of digital signage and identify the strengths and opportunities for this emerging medium.

I’m not alone on this mission. An excellent white paper from Profitable Channels makes a strong case for digital signage networks as an effective advertising medium with the ability to compensate for deficiencies in television advertising manifested in increasingly fragmented audiences, digital video recording and its accompanying commercial “zapping,” and the lack of certainty in measuring audience metrics.

The white paper presents highlights of a larger in-depth report entitled “Adding Out-of-Home Digital Advertising Networks to the Marketing and Media Mix” by Profitable Channels partner Stephen Diorio.

The white paper makes a strong case that marketers should take digital advertising seriously. It’s in the best interest of their companies, the white paper contends, to “make sure their agency partners are considering” digital advertising networks “as part of the marketing/media mix.” Additionally, it recommends marketers should be setting aside a portion of their marketing budgets for this emerging new medium.

According to the white paper, emerging digital advertising networks offer five advantages over traditional media offerings, including:

measurable sales impact proximity to the sale better ways to target media greater relevance to the product being sold tighter integration with local selling efforts

Many marketers have begun to recognize those benefits. The white paper points out that as of August 2006, 37 of the 50 largest supermarket chains “are rolling out, piloting or planning” for in-store digital signage networks and that more than 4,000 “big-box retail stores” display in-store video advertising. Further evidence supporting that marketers see the value of digital ad networks comes in the form of budget allocation.

Referencing research from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, Carat Media and others, the document asserts that by 2011 “up to $40 billion of traditional media spending” will be shifted into new media. Obviously, a large portion of this will be devoted to Internet advertising and other new media, but digital advertising networks stand to benefit as well.

“This reallocation of media spending reflects a shift in consumer “attention” away from traditional newspaper and broadcast media to the Internet and new digital media, including cell phones, video games, podcasting, and out-of-home digital advertising networks,” the white paper says.

It is important to note that the report lumps “cinema” into the overall digital media networks category without distinguishing between commercials and still ads projected on-screen by digital projectors and digital signage in and around motion picture theaters to promote films. Equally important to understand is that the former is likely to be significantly larger than the latter at this point. Regardless, the white paper identifies the overall strength of digital advertising networks, of which digital signage is an important part, and the likelihood that they will only continue to grow.

Perhaps best of all, the white paper identifies five separate research organizations that have found consumers like digital advertising networks. All show these networks have “value to, acceptance by and positive response from consumers.”

If you only have time to read one report this summer, spend it reading “Adding Out-of-Home Digital Advertising Networks to the Marketing and Media Mix” by Stephen Diorio.

A while back, we were introduced to a site that lets you type in your web site’s domain name – or even a specific page URL on your site – to see if the content on your page is being used on any other sites. We thought this was an interesting concept, so we plugged in our URL and were shocked to find our content was – word for word – being used on a number of other web sites – without our permission, obviously!

To add insult to injury, several of the sites that had outright ripped off our copy were themselves designers. In one case, the person had not only stolen our copy, but images from our portfolio, advertising our work as their own. Imagine being a client of an unscrupulous designer who searches out someone else’s web site to steal content to sell themselves to said client on merits that are not their own.

Needless to say, we were not about to take theft of our copyrighted content and images lying down! We immediately had our legal advisor draft a cease-and-desist message which was sent to the owners of each of the offending sites. Most responded quickly – and apologetically – and complied with our request for removal of our content from their sites. In one case, the owner of a printing company web site told us that the person who developed the site for them provided the copy and he was dumbfounded when we presented him with our claim of plagiarism. That case proved to be the most difficult to resolve, with the developer initially refusing to co-operate. Within a few days, however, it was, thankfully, resolved.

So, the moral of this story is two-fold:

Be pro-active in protecting your copyrighted material. Your content represents countless hours of research, writing and testing and monetary investment. Don’t let some fly-by-night thief take advantage of what is rightfully yours.

And, equally important – be careful who you hire. If the combination of stellar portfolio and bargain-basement pricing seems too good to be true – it probably is. Competent, experienced design professionals know the value of what they provide to a client and their rates will reflect that value. Do a thorough background check on the person/firm to be sure they’re legit. Ask to speak to former clients and ask if the work they received measured up to the portfolio they were shown.

While it’s unfortunate that there are unsavory sorts who would stoop to outright theft of someone else’s content, it is, in fact, a reality. The best defense against these types of crooks is to not let them get away with it. You can bet the people we caught ripping off our content will think twice before doing it again. Once busted, twice shy.

Check out the Copyscape web site – www.copyscape.com – to find out if your content is being used without permission.

In the modern age of word processing and unlimited digital resources, the practice of correctly citing material has begun to deteriorate. Potential sources have moved into digital libraries, and students have access to a plethora of previously written papers in any field with almost any subject. The technological revolution has strained the core principles that professional educators strive to instill in their students. As a society we are at a turning point. We can cower from our moral goals in the face of adversity or press forward and create new solutions to the drawbacks of living in a digital age. When it comes down to it, stepping back from our efforts to cite sources for original thought and reward people for their creativity is not an option.

At one time, academic integrity was an unquestionable pillar of essay writing and content creation. When research required a library card and a lengthy time investment in hunting down relevant resources, academic integrity was in effect protected by the distinction of taking time out to specifically harvest source material for your paper. Library time, made it more difficult for a student to blur the lines between research and other day to day activities. At the same time, there was no available access to vast databases of papers. Cheating meant sourcing a paper from a closer associate. The anonymity of downloading a cookie-cutter essay from the web was unavailable. Plagiarizing from close associates also meant that the work was more likely to be previously read by the professor. Before computers, not only was academic integrity more paramount, the act of plagiarizing was in many ways more difficult.

The digital age had a revolutionary impact on content creation in the education field. With the advent of word processing, spell checking began to shift to automated programs and essays could be printed or copied at the push of a button. The internet opened up a vast network of fully digitized resources. Library cards began to gather dust as student scoured to web for more specific and readily available resources. As web surfing became a part of nearly everyone’s day to day activities, the distinction between researching and searching began to blur. This breakdown was further exacerbated by the growing social activities available online. Student began sharing information across social networks and the art of copy and pasting interesting information became second nature.

As technology began to offer up increasingly easy channels for plagiarism, the education community and the technical community searched for means to defend the long running standard of academic integrity. The issue was not merely that students no longer cared about citation. In many cases, students never intentionally engaged in plagiarism, overlooking their behavior as just another online activity. The education community pushed for renewed understandings of academic integrity and turned to technical solutions to uncover academic misdeeds. Software companies began to offer programs that were capable of tapping into large databases and online collections of resources to crosscheck papers for citation errors. These tools allowed educators to more effectively identify plagiarism issues and pinpoint the missing sources.

As plagiarism became more difficult to self identify, a growing need developed for students to scan their own work for citation issues prior to submitting papers. Despite their best intentions, many students overlooked certain sources as the sheer access to information produced more specific and independent sources for each essay. With the potential of expulsion, students looked for more effective way to ensure they were meeting standards of academic integrity. Recently, the same companies that initially offered professors solutions for identifying plagiarism have turned their efforts to students. New paper plagiarism checker software offers a simple answer to the requirement that student self enforce proper citation practices in their essay creation. With this new technology students can research and write their original papers and then double check their citation with a simple scan of the document. The new programs will help identify which, if any, sections are flagged for citation issues and help the student police themselves for proper citation techniques.

The internet age has opened a Pandora’s box of potentially double edged technologies that can both help and hurt the education field. Ultimately, most educators would agree that more readily available access to information can only help advance education and understanding. As technology opened the door to undermine academic integrity, it also appears to have answered the call for protections against such evils. With an emphasis on citation and open access to plagiarism scanning tools, a new crop of students is prepared to meet the challenge of striving for academic integrity in a modern age.