Content is king!

I was doing some research for a client the other day and found some really useful resources for live data feeds. It's not a secret that publishing up-to-date news, stock quotes, weather and market indices is a great way to attract and retain viewers.  There are many sources of RSS data freely available online but most of these feeds are fine for personal use, they're just not intended for redistribution on your digital signage screens.

Expect to pay a nominal fee to access commercial feeds but at least you will be working with material that can be legally redistributed.  Feeds are available through the publisher themselves (like the weather feeds available from Accuweather in the US or The Weather Network in Canada) or through aggregators like YellowBrix.

• Accuweather offers content packages specially for digital signage use.  You can order RSS feeds (text and graphics) or even Flash clips that update themselves without any programming on your part.  Accuweather has an extensive list of weather related feeds plus news, trivia, sports and more. Pricing is per screen, per month.

• The Weather Network offers weather related feeds in RSS and XML format.  Global weather data is available so this is not restricted to Canadian locations.  Pricing is based on a monthly fee per feed. 

• YellowBrix can provide full text content from over 2000 sources, as well as stock quotes, weather, and market indices. Contracts are for a minimum of 12 months, and they can bill a credit card monthly or invoice quarterly.
  
  For news content, YellowBrix charges by the category. They offer a base package for a monthly fee that includes 5 category feeds.  Pricing varies depending on the application so you need to get a quote based on the type of feeds you require. Stock quotes are sold as a package offering providing access to all the data, but pricing is also highly dependent on the application.

This only scratches the surface of what's available.  It's worth taking the time to contact these companies and get a firm quote based on your specific needs.  The material isn't free but you will find feeds that cannot be sourced freely.