I came across a news announcement today about a projector system called the SMS Chatwall, which allows people to interact with it by sending SMS messages, which are then projected onto the wall for public display. The blog article reads:

The SMS projector system developed by Haase & Martin GbR is published in an English version. Short text messages, sent by any mobile phone, are received by the SMS Chatwall and shown on TV and by projector systems. Dresden (PRWEB) September 21, 2005 — The SMS projector system developed by Haase & Martin GbR is published in an English version. Short text messages, sent by any mobile phone, are received by the SMS Chatwall and shown on TV and by projector systems.

I like public display systems because they provide so rich opportunity for interaction. Users can essentially participate in what gets displayed simply by sending an SMS message, and the process for posting content on the wall is so simple, that it is very inviting.

It is very easy to imagine these types of systems in common areas in universities, used by departments, clubs or societies, and any other group of people that would now be using a noticeboard where members can post content. This is simply the digital version of the noticeboard.

However, what's really missing from this version of it, is multimedia. That's what would really make a digital noticeboard stand out. If you want it to work as a product there are at least two factors that are a must:

Obviously there is a big number of other factors that make a commercial product successful, such as marketing, build quality, market competition, etc., but I think the above two factors are key to the success of such a system.

I've experienced such systems where the difference is that you can upload multimedia content via Bluetooth, E-mail and MMS, and it is a whole new level of interaction.

Sure text messages are great, because the most important element is content, and text messages contain enough of that, but just not enough when compared with a picture or a video.

I hope the SMS Chatwall soon evolves into something a bit richer both multimedia-wise, but also interaction-wise. For example it is quite straightforward to adopt a proximity marketing system that offers Bluetooth, MMS and E-mail integration, to provide for a much more complete public display system, that I am sure a lot more people will be interested in.