LED signs enable inventive use of Twitter feeds

The use of ribbon-style LED signs as news tickers is well established, but now mircoblogging site Twitter is being harnessed by one sign manufacturer in order to unlock the power of the social networking phenomenon in the real world.

An LED display which measures two feet along and four inches high, has been developed by a firm known as Twisplays, which clearly plays on the common Twitter prefix harnessed by other companies.

This LED display will be able to show scrolling tweets with the time tagged onto the end and the account name of the tweeter listed, along with any web address information relevant to the tweet.

The display will cost around �190 and if you are unfamiliar with the power of Twitter you may be confused as to why such a display might be applicable in the business world. The main intention is to allow firms to broadcast news and updates direct from their official Twitter feed, to those potential clients or consumers who are visiting their store or offices.

Making a wide audience aware that your business has a Twitter feed and engaging them with news and tweets from it, may encourage them to follow you from their own accounts and help them spread the word.

The LED display is compatible with a wireless connection, but it can also accept a USB hook-up to a PC in order to update the scrolling tweets. At the moment the LED signs are not on general release, but they are expected to be launched officially in the near future.

This idea of bringing news feeds from the web to life on an LED display, is not unique and the earliest examples of this can be found four years ago, but bringing Twitter in as a marketing tool is definitely a step in the right direction.