Electronic billboards have been taking some heat lately from officials across the country trying to regulate them more.

Al Tompkins at Poynter Online recently compiled some examples of the issues over these billboards for his Morning Meeting blog.

Business folks like them, some people are concerned about them leading to distracted drivers and still others are seeing them as a revenue source for transportation departments.

I’m not a big fan of the electronic billboards at night but during the day they don’t seem that annoying. I suppose they could be more distracting than your standard billboards. But is anybody even bothering anymore to look away from text messaging to read billboards while driving? (Sorry, it’s hard to make a sentence drip with sarcasm the way your voice can.)

Here in Lansing, Michigan, Adams Outdoor recently started offering up their digital billboards for Amber Alerts issued by local law enforcement agencies. It’s a noble cause, so maybe they’ll get some support through their charitable efforts.

Given that they can do updates so quickly, maybe Adams has a market for some enterprising CEO who wants to link their Twitter posts to the billboard and, voila, tweets 10 feet high!

What’s your take on these billboards now dotting the landscape? Are they helpful technology or an electronic nightmare? Or, maybe, could they serve a better purpose if they were linked to regular updates rather than just being a digital format of a paper message?

Article Tags: digital advertising | electronic billboards | Twitter

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