Having a gas reading Sebastian Wenzel's post at WebAnalyticsBook.com on Web Analytics 4.0:

"….Analytics 4.0 (OK I stop this number nonsense) is going to be an web analytics industry, that is not tied to the internet and works across media channels. In the future, I expect web analytics to merge with other industries e.g the Digital signage industry.

Digital signage is a segment of out of-home advertising in which content is displayed on a digital screen rather than printed sign. The content can range from text and still images to full-motion video."

Not sure Sebastian is joking or not…. I sure hope 5 years from now I'm not going to be called Web Digital Signage Analyst..although, who knows?   I mean, I can see us collecting metrics on it, just like anything else we can get data on, but I'd probably see Digital Signage as merging with Web Analytics than the other way around.

"…A company in Sacramento, CA called SmartSign Media is using interactive technology to gather demographic profiles about passengers as they drive by and respond with advertisements tailored to their preferences. Data on how many cars listen to hat FM radio stations is collected and ad messages are adjusted in response to the demographic profile of the cars’ passengers. HumWare Media based in Colorado uses polling where consumers can respond to a question posed on a digital sign…” [Source]

The technology looks interesting though I'm wondering how a sign can serve a different image to each demographic when you have a mix of demographics in front of it at any one time. 

Yes, I think there's probably ways to do it …but we begin to create a world that is so customized that no two people will end up seeing the same thing (ie: a sign) in the same exact way…and I wonder if that's what we really want, after all.