What to do about electronic billboards...
The Washington Post has an article about the big electronic billboards that you see in a lot of cities these days. DC, where I live, hasn't been hit that hard yet, but I've seen them elsewhere.
It's a technology problem. LCD screens have gotten cheap enough to use as advertising media. Originally static, these boards are now anything but. With wi-fi hookups, they can be updated from across the country with new ads and they can be time-sliced, increasing the potential revenue for the board owner.
Of course, from the consumer point of view, they're annoying as hell. From a driver's point of view, they're distracting. From an aesthetic point of view, they're troublesome.
I have an idea (and this is just an idea, not a suggestion)--what if people were to, say, I don't know---break the screens? If enough of these LCD panels had to be replaced (you can't repair them), then maybe we'd get our skylines back again without watching flourescent marketing pap.
Posted on May 03, 2007
