CBS Outdoor Syncs Web and Roadside Billboard Content

The Silicon View digital billboard has become a landmark along Highway 101 between San Jose and San Francisco. In fact, over 1.3 million sets of eyes look at it weekly. The days of static billboards are dwindling. Digital billboards have enabled advertisers to push dynamic content however and whenever they like. Because the content is constantly moving and changing, digital signage has better rates of capturing and holding a viewer’s attention from a traditional static billboard. These digital signs can be used to complement web advertising, which is exactly why CBS Outdoor, who operates the Silicon View billboard, uses the PubNub Real-time Network. CBS Outdoor needed a way to sync their live LED billboard with a web-based “Live Content Display.” This would enable online viewers to see the content on the billboard in real time on any computer or device. CBS Outdoor built a custom player to send five color rotating images to the billboard display. Using PubNub, the billboard pushes the real-time image being displayed on the billboard to a Cloudinary URL which then syncs with the Silicon View Live Content Display online. Online users see exactly what’s on the billboard, as it happens in real time.

You will see each image just as it is displayed on the electronic LED billboard in San Carlos on the 101, timed right in sync with the billboard display thanks to PubNub, Neal Davis Senior Software Engineer at CBS Outdoor