Podcasts about linknyc

Margaux Knee, Chief Administrative Officer for LinkNYC, joined the show to discuss the LinkNYC network of public wi-fi kiosks that replaced payphones around the city and the newer "5G smartpoles," public information technology, closing the 'digital divide,' public-private partnerships, and more. (Ep 447)

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The out of home media company Intersection is probably best known as the operator of that network of smart cities display totems - called LinkNYC - on the sidewalks of Manhattan and New York City's boroughs. But the company has a much bigger footprint around the United States - mainly mass transport systems, but also the flashy Hudson Yards mixed-use development in New York, and United Airlines. I had a good chat with Chris Grosso, who took over as CEO a couple of years ago, but had already been with the company for a few years, having come over from the broadcast and digital world. We got into several things - like the state of the DOOH industry and the evolving needs and demands of the municipal governments who become business partners for Intersection. Smart cities needs, for example, are shifting. We also get into Intersection's recently announced addition of AI-driven ad and content targeting, with the idea of making what's on screens not just relevant to the city, but all the way down to neighbourhoods and streets. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Chris, thank you for joining me. Can you give me a rundown on what Intersection Is all about?  Chris Grosso: Sure, and thanks so much for having me. Very excited to be here, Dave and I very much enjoy reading your publication and the newsletter, and the email all the time. I'm Chris Grosso, the CEO of Intersection. We are a leading out-of-home advertising company in the USA focused on major US cities. We really are differentiated from the other out-of-home companies in three ways. One is typically we put in consumer amenities in center cities, most notably things like the LinkNYC program in New York, so Wifi kiosks across the city of New York. We do customer information and advertising systems for places like Chicago Transit Authority and SEPTA Transit Authority in Philadelphia. And we do bus shelters in many US cities as well. So very much driven by bringing consumer amenities and partnerships with cities and transit authorities. The second biggest differentiator for us, which is most relevant to this conversation, is our focus on content and programming. We like to put useful content on our digital screens, and we wanna put entertaining content on our digital screens, and that could be anything from what time your train is coming to what the weather might be to art or fun facts. We want to program these screens just as you program any other screen in order to make them entertaining and engaging for consumers. And the last piece of our business we pride ourselves on is selling data-driven advertising. We like to be very focused on the data that helps our advertisers understand who they're reaching when they advertise with us, as well as what happens after the release.  So the idea of consumer amenity that I gather that the smart city-ish kiosk that you're putting on the street and other things like that, that's a more modern version of the amenities, to use your term, that outdoor companies have been doing for a whole bunch of time with bus shelters, right?  Chris Grosso: For sure, and we're also in the bus shelter business as well. We do some stuff with Bikeshare, and I think it's a long tradition in out-of-home advertising to bring the amenity to allow us to get access to the public right of way to put the advertising in, and this is very valuable for a city transit authority because they're getting something that they don't have to put up the cash for. So it's a real value-creating event both for the communities as well as the advertisers.  Is it the price of entry now for particularly larger urban geographies like New York and so on, where if you want to play, you're going to have to provide infrastructure as well? Can't you just put in display totems? Chris Grosso: I think it really depends on the municipality and the deal structure. In some cases, companies have to put up the capital and bring the amenity and bring the service into the community, and that can both be the infrastructure, but increasingly also the software and the services that you can bring. But there are also some cases where, you know, particularly with the Infrastructure Financing Act, that the city or municipality might want to put up the capital for the infrastructure themselves, in which case we'll partner with them to create the revenue stream as well as overlay the data and the software to really get the most out of the infrastructure. In all cases, I think that it's important is being able to have these digital screens up, having software to put the right content in the right app at the right time a big is an important part of the equation and a big differentiator for us.  Does that happen much where you have municipalities that are making a capital investment? Chris Grosso: It depends on the deal, but yes, and there's a couple of different ways you do that sometimes the municipality puts up some of the capital themselves. In other cases, in many of these deals, we recoup the capital through the revenues. So we might if we put up the money and then recoup it out of the payments to the city. So there are many different ways you can do a deal.  Chris Grosso: There are many different ways you can do a deal. There are a handful of companies, of which we are really good at this and have built a strong team that knows how to work with cities, work with transport authorities, and create value, both for us and also for the cities. I think one big differentiator for Intersection is we are a mission-driven company, and we are very focused on making cities better through our products.  You came out of Broadcast & Online, which is very much a digital entity, and now you're running a company that has to do a lot of infrastructure and has to do these sorts of capital-intensive deals. Was that a big adjustment?  Chris Grosso: It's a different business. There are a lot of similarities between being in the digital media space and the Intersection space. But certainly, in the last few years, I've learned a lot more than I ever thought I would about trenching and conduit and coin fiber and a lot of construction. I like to say I was in consulting, and then I was in media and software. So this is the first job I actually had, physical things to deal with, and it's an interesting and exciting part of the job, and it's a real differentiator for us at Intersection. Because we have people who are very good at digital media, but we also have people who are very good at working with cities. And we've got an extraordinary team of folks who really understand how to deploy and operate these things in physical space, and that goes for even the guys who are out, cleaning and posting. We've got a really great team of professionals and field operations who really understand work in physical space, and part of what makes our business both fun also gives us a leg up is we're good at these different disciplines.  You also, I assume, had to learn a lot about politics and about city bylaws.  Chris Grosso: We've got people who very much understand that world for sure.  Which is a bit of a labyrinth. Chris Grosso: One could say that. You have to deal with them, so you're being careful. I can understand that.  Chris Grosso: I think the level of talent in these city governments is really impressive and we benefited at Intersection when we started, we were put together by a historic business Titan, which was an out-of-home advertising company, and then Control Group, which was a digital innovation company, we put together to create Intersection in 2016, right before I started. But we had the benefit of Dan Doctoroff being our chairman, who helped put the deal together and was an alumnus of the Bloomberg administration. We've benefited from some folks who come out of that world, who really understand that and did a great job in government and then can help us understand how to do stuff with the government in a way that creates value for the population and citizens, and people who live in the cities for sure, but also, creates economic value for our business. When the whole Smart Cities thing bubbled up with LinkNYC and other initiatives like that, there was a lot of noise around it. This seemed to be the way that digital at home was going, that anything that was going into big municipalities was going to have to be a smart city initiative in some way. Has that really played out?  Because I don't hear as much and/or read as much noise about all that now, and I know that we can maybe get into this a little bit of the LinkNYC has had its revenue struggles through the years. I don't know where we're at with that now, but it doesn't seem like smart cities have the same kind of energy around them that maybe they did in the mid-2010s. Chris Grosso: I think the definition of what a smart city is has evolved, and I think the parts of the smart city that are important people might not have thought of as smart cities but are huge trends in the changing nature of cities. You really saw that during the pandemic.  So what I mean by that is if you look at the evolution of mobility in a city, which wasn't the classic under the rubric of Smart Cities. Still, you think about how people get around cities now versus how they did 10 years ago with Bikeshare with Rideshare, with changes to how the transit authorities function, all of that is a much smarter way to run a city than several years ago and requires data and requires real-time information. So I think a lot of the ethos around the smart cities just got absorbed in how cities are operating, and particularly a lot of that got accelerated during the pandemic. One of the biggest areas of smart cities is what do you do with parking? And that's outside of our world, but if you think about the pandemic that happened. It really made people reimagine what you do with street-level parking in cities because all cities, particularly New York and others in the United States, suddenly put restaurants on the restaurants due to the need for giving these restaurants the ability to run their business without indoor dining, and that reimagined the whole way people do parking. Is that a classic smart city type of initiative? I don't know, but it totally reimagined how the street works, and I think if you walked down the street on the Upper West Side today versus what you saw in 2019, it's a completely different experience with the bike share and the outdoor dining and other things of that nature.  So, are there still demands among municipalities to have these smart city kiosks/totems that are multipurpose devices that they're advertising totems? Obviously, there's an interactive thing, maybe there's WiFi built-in and sensors and so on. Is that still being deployed and asked for?  Chris Grosso: I think the form factors are changing, and I think the needs are changing in the cities, and I think that there are a lot of fundamentals that cities need. So it may not be a totem, but cities need bus shelters, and now it's not just a bus shelter, it's a mobility hub. Cities need advanced wayfinding to manage this multimodal transportation system that's coming out of the pandemic. Cities have always needed it, and I think we all underestimate going to smart cities. Still, we realize now that cities need the ability to broadcast content, localized content at street level. Whether it be what time my train is coming, emergency messaging, or just education around when the community board meeting is, that has a ton of value. So I think the original premise of Smart Cities is let's take an iPhone and put it at street level. I don't think that's turned into the right answer, but I do think there are applications and amenities in the right of way that are required that cities want and are ready to ask and get deployed. And I do think you'll continue to see these kinds of initiatives. It just may not be in the form factor of totems. It may be a bus shelter because, you know what, you can put WiFi in a small shell in a bus shelter, and by the way, the bus shelter provides shade, and that's really important in certain municipalities, shelter from the rain, and that's important. So I think smart cities have evolved into what are the real needs of the people who live in the cities where before it was, “Hey, we've got a cool thing. Let us give you this.” and even if you look at the Link, the core propositions of Link like free WiFi and phone calling for sure are hugely used and hugely important. But what we also recognize is Link as a megaphone to broadcast real-time information to the city of New York is also hugely valuable and something that the community has been able to leverage effectively. Most recently, we played a big role in the we love New York campaign where, you know, if you put content on Link, we can reach, I think, 90%+ of New Yorkers a hundred times a month. That'S a massive megaphone that can be valuable to advertisers, but it also can be valuable To the city. If there are schools that get shut down for a snowstorm, flip the switch and tell everyone the schools are shut down due to the snowstorm, that's a big value for a city. Is that a classic 2015 Smart Cities thing? I don't know, but it's a huge value. If you are a parent, figuring out whether your kid's going to go to school or not the next day.  So where is Link at in terms of rollout and viability?  There've been a number of stories through the years about revenue challenges and pace of rollout, and so on, but I haven't really seen anything for a year or more. So I'm curious where it's at, and as you said, it has its value, and people like it and everything else, but is it still the way forward? Would you continue to deploy this?  Chris Grosso: Yes, so during the pandemic, working with our partners ZenFi, we actually have a new form factor for a next-generation Link, which we call Link 5G, which has many of the original features of Link, like the free WiFi and the tablet to make phone calls, but it's taller, and it allows for multi-tenant small cells, to support New York City's 5G rollout. We are in the process of working through deploying those now with our partners ZenFi, who run Fiber and telecommunications. So this would, this is a nice little partnership for you because they'd be able to share the infrastructure cost, I assume.  Chris Grosso: Exactly, and also they have the expertise in telecommunications. We are in the media content advertising space. We really understand media content and advertising software. But we're not telecom companies. ZenFi is a world-class telecom company. They understand fiber, they understand dealing with carriers and that kind of thing. So it is a good partnership. They've been great partners for us.  Your company recently announced, and you've been talking about localized content, that you're doing localization of content using AI. It strikes me as, great, this is something that absolutely should be done but it was also very reminiscent of stuff that was done, as much as 20 years ago when they would call it hyper-local.  But hyper-local was very difficult to achieve and very difficult to plan at that time, and it seemed more like an aspiration than something that was possible to do it in a way without a whole bunch of work. I assume that's changed hugely because of databases, APIs, and also AI.  Chris Grosso: Yeah, so we've always done localization, and given our screens are often deep in neighborhoods, it's a very effective way of doing stuff. We've always done it, though, with structured databases, right? Weather: give me the weather in a zip code, right? Transit: give me what's going on at the closest train station when the trains are coming. Top 10 lists of the best songs in this neighborhood, but it's all very much tied around structured data, and rules engine and APIs, and we're very good at that.  We have a whole suite of dynamic advertising products. We've got a great product, for instance, that you're a retailer, you put the ad up for the retail and then a map at the bottom to tell you how to get to the closest retail location and that's highly localized, but it's all based on structured data—the big difference now what AI is that it allows you to do things with much more unstructured depth and much more visual creativity, which we're very excited about testing and rolling out. So, for instance, if you have an ad for an alcohol brand, how do you put that alcohol brand in context for a neighborhood? Maybe you show what's the relevant drink for this block, and the AI can figure out that this is the block that Edgar Allen Po lived on, so it'll be Edgar Allen Po's drink. Trying to do that manually would be impossible. But you can do that using these AI engines and then on the visual side as well, which is very exciting. Maybe there's a mascot or character of a brand, and let's actually put that brand in context in the neighborhood and dressed up as someone from the neighborhood. You can do that kind of thing with these AI engines that if you were rying to do this yourself, you may not figure out the creative idea, and could never have the army of people who take to build all that creative. So that's why we're very excited about using these tools to do localization for unstructured data, and yeah, more creative types of ideas than the classic, “Hey, here's the top 10 songs being played in this neighborhood.” It expands a lot of possibilities. But how do you do the gatekeeping on it? Because, as many people have described, AI can sometimes have these “hallucinations” and come up with a strange list that maybe isn't the top 10 songs in that neighborhood. Chris Grosso: Yeah, for sure. One way you do it is to control the prompts and make sure you're being smart about how you're doing the prompting. The second is: We still would envision having a layer of humans looking at all the creative before it goes on the screen to catch stuff that just doesn't make sense. Over time that problem might go away, but you still want some level of quality control, but it's very different to have creative designers take a look at a hundred pictures over the course of an hour and just check everything to make sure it looks good as opposed to trying to create all those mocks literally. It's a huge difference, and so I think, at least to start, we're going to have some level of human quality control in this for sure. But I still think the ability to use these tools to be able to do things you never could do before because you just didn't have the army pf people and it would not be cost-effective to work is really what we're moving towards. In the old days, my understanding of digital out-of-home was a media planner would develop the plan, and the media company would execute it based on the insertion orders for that plan. When you're getting into hyper-local AI-driven targeting and original content by the street, who's doing that plan? Chris Grosso: I think it's often in partnership with the advertiser or the agency, right? There may be cases where the agency has a really good idea of what they want to do. There may be cases where the agency says, help us think this through, and we've always provided creative services to our clients whenever they needed it. So this is not far afield from what we do already.  When I mentioned some of these dynamic advertising, oftentimes, we build them on behalf of advertisers and our agencies as part of our partnership. So we envision it in the same way.  David:] I gather that programmatic is on the rise. The usage level is up. The last number I saw was like 15% of digital out-of-home ads are now booked out of programmatic platforms. Is there a bridge between programmatic and this AI-driven hyper-local stuff, or do they have to operate independently because it's just how it works? Chris Grosso: I think to start, you have to build out these campaigns, and these campaigns will be more high-touch than your classic programmatic campaigns. So I think to start, these really have to be directlt sold because a lot of this is around the creative idea and creative concept, and there needs to be back and forth with clients to really get this right. As opposed to programmatic, which is really about scale and tonnage and efficiency, and we spend a lot of time on programmatic as well, for sure. We launched a Place Exchange, which is an out-of-home ,SSP and we actually spun that business out because they did a lot of work with us, but they were doing work with all the other publishers, too, so it made sense to be an independent company. We have very deep integrations with Place Exchange and several other SSPs. So we're very focused on programmatic and do view it as a growth driver. But I do think the creative side has to be much more, and I really think long term the way the business goes - I used to work for Tim Armstrong at AOL who used to call it the concept of the barbell - and I think you're going to see continued growth of programmatic, and then the direct sales really going to be about driving solutions for advertisers that are highly strategic and deep partnerships with advertisers. It could be something like the AI program, or it could be like other things we do, for instance, where we have advertisers sponsor train stations or whole train lines for multi-year deals where we work together to rename a station or a train line. In New York City, the Bet MGM renamed the line that goes out to the Meadowlands, and we do this in other places as well. So I do think you're going to see the direct sale be much more solution-driven and working very tightly with the advertisers and the agencies to build these really cool things, whether it be AI or long-term sponsorships or big programs and then on, on the flip side, you'll see the programmatic businesses continue to scale as well.  Has the characteristics of venues and the type of venue partners evolved over the years, like the old Titan was about transit and street furniture, but you have other companies that are very active in airports and other mass transport hubs.  Is that evolving for you as well, or are you very much about kind of street-level advertising?  Chris Grosso: We're about cities and the the key thing is street level advertising in cities is really really important for us, and a big area of focus transit remains a big area of focus as well. And then we've done a little bit in airports and airlines. We've also done work with some of the next-generation multi-use developments like Hudson Yards, where we put in the wayfinding directory system and the advertising system, and that's a great business for us. But our criteria for whether or not we want to partner with someone really comes down to being able to do something value creating in big cities, top 25 cities in the US. That's what we're good at. That's how we're differentiated and sure, the types of partners that we work with will continue to evolve just as the audiences are evolving.  If you think about the transit business, the transit business includes street furniture. It includes signage outside train stations, it includes buses, and it includes the train stations themselves. I think during the pandemic, what we found is the vast majority of our revenue, and where all the growth was is on the outside of the train station, the outside of the bus stations, everything that's at street level. And that offset the fact that the train stations themselves have fewer people, but there are still tons of people outside the train stations, and that's where we put a lot of our emphasis on the ad side.  Has the business recovered from the Covid era?  Chris Grosso: Yes. It looks different given our revenue mix, but we're largely back to pre Covid revenue levels. The bus exterior business and the street furniture business are well above. The train station part of the business is still somewhat below because the ridership is just not there. Then we're continuing to look at new types of inventory, whether it be multiuse destinations, as I said, like Hudson Yards, airlines and new forms of street furniture. For instance, we've got a great ad campaign on the bike share in some cities.  Do you have to look at municipal opportunities differently now? Because of the way Covid changed things and the urban downtown areas not being as heavily populated with office workers as they were in the past. It's different in New York or something, but let's say in Cincinnati or Minneapolis, or something where not as many people are coming into the urban area. Chris Grosso: Yeah, we do the exact same methodology when we assess the deals that we look at, which always starts with where the audience is, and we've got folks who are really good at looking at GIS and traffic patterns and people patterns to understand the scale of the audience on all the different assets we might either deploy or take over the ad sales for. That mechanism, we do exactly the same mechanism that we did in 2018-2019, we do today. What comes out of those models is a little bit different, for sure. But what's great about a lot of our business is we typically cover the entire city, not just the central business district. And a good example of this would be in New York, the LinkNYC. If you look at the impressions, both ad impressions generated by the LinkNYC network before and after the pandemic on a network level, they're pretty close. However, the Links in Midtown Manhattan, where people are going to work three days a week are lower, however the Links on, say, the Upper West Side or in Brooklyn are actually higher because of things like outdoor dining and people working from home. So the people are all there. They just moved around different places, and so the methodology we use, which is understanding where the audience is, works fine, we look at everything the same way. But what comes out of those models is different based on how cities evolve.  I talk a lot to people in Europe, and they have asked me where are things at in terms of what they call Green Signage and are there North American digital signage and digital out-of-home network operators that are concerned and doing something about energy costs. Is it something that comes up with you, or is it something you're trying to address?  Chris Grosso: We are definitely looking at sustainability to the extent it's part of our assessment for screens on how much power they use, and then we are also looking at how to make these networks more sustainable. Ways you do that. So, for instance, one is, we do static bus shelters, but they still need a backlight, and we will use solar panels on those shelters, which has the benefit of both being greener friendly, but also just cheaper because you don't have to pull power to the shelters. Regarding digital signs like LinkNYC, we've looked for opportunities to source electricity from green sources and that's been something we've done successfully.  But then also we look at our footprint on how we take care of our infrastructure. So we've started to test, for instance, electric vehicles in one of our markets. All the trucks that we use are electric right now. Running that as a pilot it's gone very well. The guys love the EV trucks to the point where we had a couple of EVs and a couple of gas guys just fighting over who got to use the EVs. So instead of being a half-EV, half-gas pilot, we put everything on EVs in that market because everyone's fighting over to drive the EVs.  Are you being banged on at all by municipal authorities or by public interest groups saying, you need to do something to reduce energy waste. These displays on the sidewalk are not mission-critical.  Just like Europe, where they were saying you need to turn these off for certain periods of time, they don't need to be running 24/7 anymore. Is that something you have to worry about, or are you hearing about? Chris Grosso: I think municipalities want you to be sustainable, but I think we would argue our signs are mission-critical and should be up 24/7. But no, no one's asked us to do anything otherwise, but if you think about the importance of real-time information, if you're looking at when my bus is coming, or the weather and the sign's not on, that's a problem. We like to think, and we would insist all of our signs are actually pretty mission-critical. Now that being said, there are things you can do around how much power you use and dim the signs at night, and that kind of thing to reduce the energy load and optimize that, and everyone consents to do that. And then again, to the extent we can source power from green sources, we do that as well.  Last question. What can we expect to see out of Intersection in the next year? You made that announcement recently about generative AI. What's next?  Chris Grosso: So I think we're very focused on product innovation around serving, meeting our customers on the needs that they want. So I think you will continue to see more innovation around ad formats. You're also going to start to continue to see more innovation around measurement and attribution and our ability to help people, help advertisers understand who's seeing their ads and what they do after their ads and that's a huge focus for us and a big area of investment. I think you'll hear a lot about it, and then, we're always looking at new partnerships and new deployments, and we've got some stuff cooking right now that we're hoping to be able to talk about towards the back half of the year as part of our continued expansion. All right. Chris, thank you very much for spending some time with me.  Chris Grosso: Thank you, David. I appreciate it.

In this episode, host Tim Rowe interviews Chris Grosso, CEO of Intersection Media, about various topics related to the out-of-home (OOH) advertising industry. They discuss Grosso's background, the importance of transit advertising in rebooting cities, the role of public-private partnerships, and the potential of street furniture as a retail media network.Segment 1: Chris Grosso's Origin StoryGrosso discusses his background and entry into the OOH industryTalks about his passion for bringing technology to the industrySegment 2: Transit Advertising and Post-Covid RecoveryGrosso highlights the importance of transit advertising in revitalizing citiesDiscusses the need for cities to be livable and multi-used to thrive post-CovidTalks about the role of public-private partnerships in providing amenities such as bus shelters, street furniture, and the LinkNYC program in New YorkSegment 3: Collaboration and Data in the OOH IndustryGrosso emphasizes the importance of data and collaboration in the OOH industryDiscusses the significance of agencies and specialist agencies as critical partnersTalks about the industry's need to work together to gain the budgets it deserves and make it easier for non-OOH buyers to purchase OOH mediaSegment 4: Leveraging Street Furniture as a Retail Media NetworkGrosso discusses the potential of leveraging street furniture as a retail media network to drive foot trafficTalks about Intersection Media's 400 signs within 250 feet of drug stores and 200 signs within 250 feet of a TargetDiscusses the need to connect the right buyers and sellers with the right data to unlock value for marketers, retailers, and the industrySegment 5: Interactivity and Measurement in OOH AdvertisingGrosso talks about how the digitization of signs is not necessary for interactivity and measurement benefitsHighlights the value of OOH media as a mass-reach medium, particularly in major citiesShares an example of how they used the LinkNYC program for the launch of a movie to show nearby theaters, available tickets, and show timesConclusion: Chris Grosso and Tim Rowe wrap up the discussion by summarizing the main points of the interview and emphasizing the importance of collaboration, data, and innovation in the OOH advertising industry.Quotable Moments from Chris"Whatever one can do on a mobile phone, they can do on a digital sign.""The industry needs to work together to gain the budgets it deserves and make it easier for non-OOH buyers to purchase OOH media.""Transit advertising is critical in revitalizing cities.""The potential of leveraging street furniture as a retail media network to drive foot traffic is huge.""Data and collaboration are crucial for success in the OOH industry."Looking for your next job in OOH? Start here: www.oohired.com

In this 124th episode of The G2 on 5G, Anshel and Will Cover:1. Rakuten and Juniper Networks team to provide RIC for free and what it means for 5G operator monetization opportunities2. MediaTek Executive Summit Recap - Dimensity 9200, T800, and More!3. Cradlepoint announces the availability of 5G optimized SD-WAN - what's the big deal and highlights from Will's recently published brief4. LinkNYC Link5G towers spark debate in New York City about ugly appearance5. Samsung's recent 5G mmWave POC in Australia and why it's important6. ZTE, Nokia Shanghai Bell, and CICT Mobile test mmWave 5G with Qualcomm's X65 modem hitting 7.1 Gbps down, 2.1 Gbps up, and 3.6 ms latency

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2022/07/10/mayor-adams-cto-fraser-and-linknyc-unveil-first-link5g-kiosk-in-new-york-city/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/support

The death of NYC payphones has been greatly exaggerated, LinkNYC kiosks and anonymity, HOPE update, Supreme Court temporarily blocks Texas's social media moderation law.

The death of NYC payphones has been greatly exaggerated, LinkNYC kiosks and anonymity, HOPE update, Supreme Court temporarily blocks Texas's social media moderation law.

In this episode of Digital & Dirt, host Ian Dallimore speaks with Dave Etherington, current CCO Place Exchange. They start by reviewing Dave's early career path at the BBC and The Guardian. They then move on to Dave's time as marketing Director at Titan and the learning curves he endured that eventually lead him to be CSP of Intersection. Ian and Dave discuss the creation of LinkNYC and the impact it had on advertising. Finally, Dave discusses his current role at Place Exchange and his attraction to innovating the Ad space. Early Career: 1:28-3:30Titan: 8:58-11:24LinkNYC: 17:24-22:29Place Exchange: 22:58-32:19

Dr Spencer is the Chief Information Security Officer at Nomadix & GlobalReach. Chris has been a technology leader in the Wi-Fi industry for well over two decades. Previously the Chief Technology Officer for GlobalReach for over 20 years, his team helped to design and build some of the world's largest secure Wi-Fi network, including the first Wi-Fi network on the London Underground, public Wi-Fi for a national USA coffee shop chain, large-scale municipal networks with LinkNYC, San Francisco and San Jose, in-flight Wi-Fi for pan-continental airlines, and carrier SMB services, allowing seamless connectivity for users. A recognized thought leader in best-practice secure, seamless sign-on experience, and the use of Passpoint (Hotspot 2.0), Chris has been involved in the specification, and delivery of Next Generation Hotspots (NGH), and leads and co-leads several industry working groups for the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) and the Seamless Air Alliance (SAA). He has presented at HTNG, Barcelona 2015, at Mobile World Congress, the Wireless Broadband Alliance Global Congress, at Wi-Fi Now and on TV and radio.

Guest: Rebecca Williams is a Fellow with Belfer Center's Technology and Public Purpose Project where she is researching threats to civil liberties posed by "smart city" technologies. Rebecca has previously worked on data policy and management at the local, federal, and international level for the White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, Johns Hopkins University's Center for Government Excellence, General Services Administration's Data.gov, and the Sunlight Foundation. You can follow her work on her personal website, on her Substack, or her Twitter account.Related Readings:Kalia, Shahid Buttar and Amul. “LinkNYC Improves Privacy Policy, Yet Problems Remain.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 5, 2017. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/linknyc-improves-privacy-policy-yet-problems-remain. Descant, Skip. “Lawsuit Challenging L.A.'s Collection of Scooter Data Dismissed.” Government Technology State & Local Articles - e.Republic, March 1, 2021. https://www.govtech.com/fs/Lawsuit-Challenging-LA-s-Collection-of-Scooter-Data-Dismissed.html. Musulin, Kristin. “Cisco Explains Its Smart City Software Exit.” Smart Cities Dive, January 15, 2021. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/cisco-explains-its-smart-city-software-exit/593139/. Sheard, Adam Schwartz and Nathan. “Why EFF Doesn't Support Bans On Private Use of Face Recognition.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 20, 2021. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/why-eff-doesnt-support-bans-private-use-face-recognition. CreditsProduced by Mark LernerMusic by Zach PfeiferArtwork by Zihao Wang

Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin discuss their project to generate every melody that can possibly exist in an attempt to end music copyright lawsuit claims, more businesses and schools are shifting to online work due to coronavirus fears, the LinkNYC project is in trouble, more coronavirus domain names registered.

Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin discuss their project to generate every melody that can possibly exist in an attempt to end music copyright lawsuit claims, more businesses and schools are shifting to online work due to coronavirus fears, the LinkNYC project is in trouble, more coronavirus domain names registered.

Welcome to Episode 128 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Leslie Borrell, VP of Smart Cities at Intersection. When we talk about the next 5, 10, 15 or more years of urban living, the phrase “smart city” will almost definitely be a part of the conversation. Now, smart city can mean a number of different things, from good public Wi-Fi to autonomous cars and much, much more. Intersection is a company at the forefront of the smart cities revolution. Its mission is to improve the experience of public places through technology that provides connectivity, information, and engaging content and experiences to civilians across various cities. You might know them from LinkNYC, the largest and fastest free public Wi-Fi network in the world. Leslie is part of the team that is making Smart Cities a reality and as we discuss her background, you'll notice that she has not been afraid to take chances and go for it. This has all paid off as she has held engineering leadership roles at a variety of tech companies in NYC. In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of other topics, like: -Leslie's thoughts on what our smart city future will look like. -The full background story of her career and how she worked her way into engineering leadership roles. -All the details on Intersection's products and how they are powering smart cities, plus their business model. -The company's culture, including their approach to diversity and inclusion, and advice for companies on building a diverse workplace. -Advice for women on pursuing leadership roles in tech. -And so much more. Ok - quick side note - Our Job Board has over 4,400 positions listed, and we just went through a redesign of the job listings. It is a much cleaner design and you'll find highly relevant information on each listing like employee testimonials, photos, video, and the latest featured story from VentureFizz. This way you can learn a lot more about the company and its culture direct from each job listing. Go to venturefizz.com/jobs to check it out. Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Amanda O’Donnell is the Chief Operating Officer of VoteRunLead, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that trains women to run for office (and win). Before stepping into her current role, Amanda spent over a decade as a founding partner of Control Group, the company which had the winning bid on LinkNYC, transforming all pay phones in NYC into free WiFi kiosks. In this episode, Amanda discusses modes of disrupting male-dominated spaces by breaking down barriers and biases and creating pathways for female leadership at all levels; she also touches on the importance of truly valuing the unique female perspective and finding your authentic “why”. Check out VoteRunLead’s 90-day challenge here: https://voterunlead.org/resources/download-the-90-day-challenge-deck/ Also, check out this link on how to brag better: https://www.brag-better.com/aboutbragbetter

“[We see] women stepping into leadership as their full authentic selves as opposed to -what women have been taught often in the past - try to be like the next best male candidate.”  Amanda O’Donnell is the Chief Operating Officer of VoteRunLead, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that trains women to run for office (and win). Before stepping into her current role, Amanda spent over a decade as a founding partner of Control Group, the company which had the winning bid on LinkNYC, transforming all pay phones in NYC into free WiFi kiosks. In this episode, Amanda discusses modes of disrupting male-dominated spaces by breaking down barriers and biases and creating pathways for female leadership at all levels; she also touches on the importance of truly valuing the unique female perspective and finding your authentic “why”.  Check out VoteRunLead’s 90-day challenge here: https://voterunlead.org/resources/download-the-90-day-challenge-deck/ Also, check out this link on how to brag better: https://www.brag-better.com/aboutbragbetter

Working to bridge the digital divide in New York City, Alize V. Garcia is the co-founder of Y.U.N.G Harlem (Youth Under New Guidance) and community affairs manager at Intersection for LinkNYC. Born and raised in the Harlem section of New York City, Alize has a Master of Public Administration degree from Metropolitan College of New York and an undergraduate degree in marketing from Howard University in Washington, DC. In this episode of our Driven Minds Podcast, Alize sits down and chats with us about working with the people next to you, giving back to the community, and starting We Give Too. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/drivensocietypodcast/support

The Factory gets a new hire and its first LinkNYC ad all over the city. The guys talk about the upcoming election, black agenda and legislators.

Mark interviews Ava Kofman, journalist at The Intercept, on LinkNYC kiosks. Tomaš Dvořák - "Game Boy Tune" - Machinarium Soundtrack - "Mark's intro" - "Interview with Ava Kofman from The Intercept" - "Your calls and comments 201-209-9368" The Pink Tiles - "Internet" - #1 Fan (LP) https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/82248

Mark interviews Ava Kofman, journalist at The Intercept, on LinkNYC kiosks. Tomaš Dvořák - "Game Boy Tune" - Machinarium Soundtrack - "Mark's intro" - "Interview with Ava Kofman from The Intercept" - "Your calls and comments 201-209-9368" The Pink Tiles - "Internet" - #1 Fan (LP) http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/82248

One of the things I love about working in the Consumer Technology industry is the opportunity I have to hear how companies are doing product research and bringing new tech to market. My guest, today, Deena Ghazarian is an especially delightful person to talk to about those topics because she is a vital part of the TargetPath team - an accelerator that helps tech startups and established technology companies get started, scale, and become successful faster. One of the things I love about working in the Consumer Technology industry is the opportunity I have to learn how companies are doing product research and bringing new technologies to market. My guest on this episode is Deena Ghazarian, an especially delightful person to talk to about those topics because she is a vital part of the TargetPath team - an accelerator that helps tech startups get started, scale, and become successful faster. In this conversation Deena and I were able to talk about a number of fascinating topics such as how the TargetPath team has been on the front lines of the “smart city” movement, helping the city of New York establish and implement its smart city program. We also spoke about innovative ways startups and established tech companies alike are using Kickstarter and Amazon to do product research and set their companies up for success. Deena is a smart, accomplished professional who brings years of experience to the consumer tech industry. I know you’re going to benefit from hearing what she shares on this episode. This company is on the leading edge of implementing smart city tech in the 5 boroughs of New York City One of the exciting tech projects Deena and the TargetPath team has been involved in lately is the LinkNYC project. They’ve helped remove every payphone in the city with gleaming silver kiosks (called “Links) that contain Wi-Fi beacons, mobile device chargers, and informational tablets for users. The goal is to have at least 4,550 of these units spread across the five boroughs by the year 2020. Deena says consumer tech is not just about headphones and smart speakers, it’s also about connecting consumers of city services to those services in ways that are beneficial and efficient. It’s an amazing project and a look into the future of what consumer tech companies will be working on more and more as we move forward. Equipping Sol Republic to go from $0 to $65M in just over 3 years You may have seen one of the “Soundtrack of Life” video clips featuring Olympic champion Michael Phelps. They were created by a headphone brand called Sol Republic. The company was founded in 2011 and Deena and the TargetPath team were instrumental in the product research and analysis, product development, launch, and management of the brand from the beginning. Today Sol Republic is one of the fastest growing audio brands in its category. Speaking about Michael as a member of the promotional team, Deena says, “Michael did it for his love of music and what Sol Republic stood for. It was a very interesting model where he wanted to be associated with what was cool, so we were very lucky to have Michael as part of the team.” In Deena’s description of this success story, you’ll hear the key role an advisory team like TargetPath can have in the product research and development of a successful brand. It’s a strategy more brands will likely be adopting in the future. When your product is your baby, it’s hard to hear how it might be ugly Startup founders often have a hard time seeing why consumers are not going to fall in love with their product idea in the same way they have. It’s their beautiful baby, but Deena points out that apart from hard work and strategic planning, the consumer is not going to adopt it. Along that line, it’s easy to think that if the product could only be promoted effectively to a big retailer like Best Buy, everything else would work itself out. But the truth is that those big retailers are going to rightfully demand that the product is a quality product consumers will not only relate to but also like. That’s why it’s better to build a distribution channel strategy that can deliver the best product for the end consumer. Deena says, “If you jump ahead of that process too quickly, it, unfortunately, can be the downfall of your baby.” Learn why good product and consumer research and strategic distribution can make or break even the most innovative consumer tech products, on this episode with Deena Ghazarian. Kickstarter and Amazon are great sources of honest feedback for startups The tendency is to think that Kickstarter and Indiegogo are for startups, but there’s actually a great opportunity for established brands to use those platforms to get the feedback they need. With good feedback, they are able to iterate and adapt their products to consumer needs and demands. A company can learn whether or not customers will engage with the product story, what the price point should be, and how the product is going to fly long-term. Amazon is a great model to utilize for product research and development as well. The reason is that the reviews given on products in the Amazon ecosystem are honest reviews. Nothing is held back, so companies can listen to that feedback and make changes as a result. Deena points out how less commonly considered things, like packaging, can become focal-points for changes simply because of the consumer feedback received. She says, “They’ll tell you if you’re not doing anything to stand out. That’s really valuable feedback that’s hard to get because in most cases people are not thinking about the last 3 feet of the sale and how the consumer reacts to the products.” Listen to the rest of this episode to hear Deena’s thoughts about the future of consumer tech as it relates to voice technology and handsfree implementations, health and wellness, and IOT implementation out of doors. If you are with a consumer technology company planning to launch a new product at CES, or are even looking ahead to CES 2019, the Max Borges Agency can help you succeed. To learn more, check out: www.maxborgesagency.com. Topics Featured In This Episode [1:50] How Deena Ghazarian got involved in consumer tech [3:53] Transitioning to Monster as director of sales [9:06] The role TargetPath plays in helping product creators become profitable [11:40] Amazon strategies TargetPath helps startups implement [14:10] Examples of companies TargetPath has served [17:30] Mistakes commonly made by hardware entrepreneurs [20:37] Using Kickstarter and Amazon to get initial feedback on consumer tech products [23:50] Consumer tech trends Deena is keeping her eye on [25:43] The future of TargetPath: Doubling down to serve world-changing startups [31:01] The best way for startups to work with TargetPath Resources & People Mentioned Replay TV Anthony Wood (CEO of ROKU) Monster Sol Republic Homedics Noel Lee Michael Phelps Best Buy Amazon Apple Kickstarter The Amazon Exclusive Group Consumer Technology Association Board of Industry Leaders Gary Shapiro Connect with Deena Ghazarian TargetPath Connect With Max Borges www.MaxBorgesAgency.com LinkedIn Subscribe to Unconventional Genius onApple Podcasts, Otto Radio, Player FM, Soundcloud, or Spotify  

This episode we're speaking with Dave Etherington, who is CSO of Intersection, one of the companies responsible for LinkNYC. In 2014 New York City set out to overhaul their payphone infrastructure. The result is LinkNYC which provides anyone in New York City with free phone calls to anywhere in the U.S., free wifi, local information and some other things that Dave and I discuss. It's all supported by advertising, but as you'll hear, that can be OK. This is a really big project, with over $200 million invested in new fiber optic cable to support the more than 7,500 Link kiosks that will be installed over the next eight years. In fact, Dave tells me that this is "the largest deployment of digital displays in the world". We talked about this Apex Award winning installation via Skype. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS     

New York began rolling out LinkNYC kiosks, replacing defunct analog phone-booths with 9.5-foot-tall, digital monoliths. The goal, according to LinkNYC’s website, is to make free, high-speed wi-fi available to all New Yorkers by deploying 7,500 kiosks across the city over the next eight years. Jesse Rubin tells us more in his article published in The Indypendent. http://ow.ly/EDWQ30a3K1B

In this episode, Molly talks with Dr. Shannon Mattern about New York City's LinkNYC program and the troubles it has faced in trying to provide public access to the internet on the city streets. The discussion revolves around how involving librarians and archivists in the planning process could bring some wisdom to smart city developments. Here is a link to a rough transcript of the episode: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rbIr4PFTEqf2Bgv9fBqWNDF1dfnWuAUQTK-M11Ww3w/edit?usp=sharing Village Voice article: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/google-is-transforming-nycs-payphones-into-a-personalized-propaganda-engine-8822938 Shannon Mattern's article "Public In/Formation in the journal Places: https://placesjournal.org/article/public-information/#ref_4 Mayor DeBlasio on shutting off LinkNYC browsing privileges for WNYC: http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/741-16/transcript-mayor-de-blasio-appears-live-wnyc Nick Pinto's article "Google Is Transforming NYC's Payphones Into a 'Personalized Propaganda Engine'" for the Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/google-is-transforming-nycs-payphones-into-a-personalized-propaganda-engine-8822938 Article by Elinor Ostrom about the knowledge commons: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262083577_sch_0001.pdf More information about LinkNYC: https://www.link.nyc/index.html Tools used to record this podcast: Blue Yeti microphone: http://www.bluemic.com/products/yeti/ Transcribe: https://transcribe.wreally.com/app Reaper: http://www.reaper.fm/ Intro Music is "Magic" by Otis MacDonald from the YouTube Audio Library

Today we talk about the Global Warming and its effect on bear complexions, Usain smiling back at you, Brazil's Olympic Boo game, Obamas pardons, and how trustworthy is LinkNYC?

Este podcast trata las opciones de conectividad gratuita existentes y de nueva creación que el visitante y el residente de Nueva York tienen.Enace a LinkNC: www.link.nycFeed para suscribirse al podcast: http://www.spreaker.com/user/7494944/episodes/feedMétodos de contacto:email: unminutoennuevayork@gmail.comWeb: http://un-minuto-en-nueva-york.tumblr.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unminutoennuevayorkpodcast Twitter: @unminutoenNY Instagram: @unminutoennuevayork

Este podcast trata las opciones de conectividad gratuita existentes y de nueva creación que el visitante y el residente de Nueva York tienen. Enace a LinkNC: www.link.nyc Feed para suscribirse al podcast: http://www.spreaker.com/user/7494944/episodes/feed Métodos de contacto: email: unminutoennuevayork@gmail.com Web: http://un-minuto-en-nueva-york.tumblr.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unminutoennuevayorkpodcast Twitter: @unminutoenNY Instagram: @unminutoennuevayork

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Welcome to episode #266. On the show: The first beacon'd city; Crowdsourcing maps from driving your Toyota; Does it seem like Jameson's is following you? They are; Adored loved to the tuned of $2.3 million; Fleetzen's on-demand fleet of pick-up trucks; ShopperTrack acquired by Tyco; Starbucks teams with Alibaba; Twitter lets you control drones; LinkNYC wifi payphone are HERE!; P&G testing Snapchat ads in Ulta stores. Two resources for you today: Swirl's report on the state of store personalization and Samsung's white paper on how the Internet of Things will transform business.

Welcome to episode #266. On the show: The first beacon'd city; Crowdsourcing maps from driving your Toyota; Does it seem like Jameson's is following you? They are; Adored loved to the tuned of $2.3 million; Fleetzen's on-demand fleet of pick-up trucks; ShopperTrack acquired by Tyco; Starbucks teams with Alibaba; Twitter lets you control drones; LinkNYC wifi payphone are HERE!; P&G testing Snapchat ads in Ulta stores. Two resources for you today: Swirl's report on the state of store personalization and Samsung's white paper on how the Internet of Things will transform business.

Welcome to episode #266. On the show: The first beacon'd city; Crowdsourcing maps from driving your Toyota; Does it seem like Jameson's is following you? They are; Adored loved to the tuned of $2.3 million; Fleetzen's on-demand fleet of pick-up trucks; ShopperTrack acquired by Tyco; Starbucks teams with Alibaba; Twitter lets you control drones; LinkNYC wifi payphone are HERE!; P&G testing Snapchat ads in Ulta stores. Two resources for you today: Swirl's report on the state of store personalization and Samsung's white paper on how the Internet of Things will transform business. The post Tweet that drone outta my face appeared first on UNTETHER.tv - Mobile, wearables and the Internet of Things.

LinkNYC http://online.wsj.com/articles/nyc-hangs-up-pay-phones-announces-linknyc-digital-hubs-1416251896 http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-citys-linknyc-wifi-plan-2014-11 http://gizmodo.com/the-plan-to-turn-old-payphones-into-free-gigabit-wi-fi-1659688867 Empathy http://uxmag.com/articles/what-is-empathy http://www.wimp.com/empathyevolution/ http://theory.realizingempathy.com/ http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_habits_of_highly_empathic_people1 http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition https://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_kluwe_how_augmented_reality_will_change_sports_and_build_empathy