Windows of opportunity
Company's projection system could turn acres of glass into multimedia billboards
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | February 11, 2008
Adam Dell was walking on a beach a couple of years ago when it finally came to him how to market his multimedia company, located on Seventh Avenue in New York.
He returned home, worked on some new imaging software, rigged up projection equipment in his office, and cast an image brightly advertising his company on the office window - so thousands of passersby would see it.
"The phone rang within 15 minutes, saying, 'We could use something like that,' " said Dell. "I thought it was a joke from one of our employees."
It wasn't.
Dell, 35, now lives in Boston and is chief executive of WindowGain Inc., a company founded on the idea of using empty windows for digital media. He is partnering with a prominent Boston developer, John Rosenthal, to brighten up drab storefronts nationwide, put acres of vacant glass in high-visibility locations to use, and make some money along the way.
WindowGain installed a temporary display of 80 square feet in a window in company chairman Rosenthal's parking garage on Lansdowne Street near Fenway Park, displaying messages for the Museum of Science, the New England Aquarium, and the movie "Michael Clayton." It instantly started earning thousands of dollars of revenue.
"That was really a demo we used to raise money to start the company," said Rosenthal, best known as the prospective developer of One Kenmore, a mixed-use complex near Fenway Park, and owner of the large billboard with anti-violence messages facing the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Walk down Washington Street near Downtown Crossing, and you'll see a relatively small - 25 square feet - but brilliantly lit slide show, an example of what this new industry is assembling for pedestrians in urban areas.
There, at 395 Washington in the old Barnes & Noble space, passersby witness a little light propaganda from the City of Boston, including a Harborwalk promotion, in a rotating visual gallery mixed in with information from sponsors like the Massachusetts State Lottery and Verizon Communications Inc. The same messages are being shown on a window at 52 Summer St.
With a goal of dressing up Downtown Crossing, the Boston Redevelopment Authority has partnered with WindowGain on the displays. Others will light up in the old Filene's building, while it is being redeveloped, and at a location soon to be vacated on Winter Street.
"It's an innovative way to activate empty storefronts with new technology," said Randi Lathrop, who has overseen the Downtown Crossing pilot projects.
WindowGain isn't the only company developing the ability to turn glass of almost any size into a platform for outdoor communication.
Neoscape Inc., the Boston company that creates visuals and virtual reality presentations for developers, is experimenting with its own version of the technology for one of its big multi-property clients.
"It's creating an immersive, experiential type of display that invites people to learn more about what's going on at a particular site," said Robert MacLeod, president of Neoscape. "It's almost as if the building itself is becoming an art installation, aimed at conveying a particular message."
It would seem a simple idea to take a piece of projection equipment - something like the ubiquitous PowerPoint projector - and aim it at a sheet of glass to display an image on the other side.
The problem was getting a high-definition picture bright enough to be seen in the sunlight as well as at night. "We need a lot of lumens," Dell said.
He said a normal PowerPoint projector operates with 3,000 to 5,000 lumens, a measure of brightness. "Our total is about 30,000," Dell said.
That means using multiple projectors - usually four to six, arranged closely together in a rack - that split the image being projected into pieces.
The genius of WindowGain, Dell said, is that he and his partners have developed the computer software that knits the images from all the different projectors together on the glass, so viewers don't see it in all its parts.
"You have an array of projectors," Dell said. "It warps and blends the images so there are no lines or seams or gaps." The company continues to develop the proprietary system and has applied for patents.
The city's regulations for outdoor advertising currently allow new-age images like these in three areas: the Theatre District, the Lansdowne Street club district, and around the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Lathrop said an exception was made at Downtown Crossing for public-information messages that could fill in some of the existing commercial holes.
"We're really concentrating on Downtown Crossing right now," said Lathrop, who is considering projecting a citywide calendar of events. But the other neighborhoods may see installations soon. "In those districts you could do a lot more advertising," she said.
While the Washington Street window was relatively small, limiting the size of the projected image, a pilot installation that Dell's team put up briefly on Mason Street was 130 square feet - about the size of the ceiling of a small room. Thin support columns between panels of glass that interrupt the image are no problem, Dell said, often even adding an artistic element by breaking a wall-size frame into pieces.
Rosenthal became involved after he got a call early last year from Dell, who was still living in New York and had read about Rosenthal's huge billboard along the turnpike, on the back of his parking garage. "I said I had to meet this guy," Rosenthal said.
A property owner, Rosenthal saw the potential instantly.
"In real estate, vacancy is your enemy," he said. The ability to advertise on empty windows you already own was compelling, he said, and he signed up another real estate developer, Steve Samuels, to join in developing WindowGain.
"He said, 'Absolutely brilliant. I'm in. Where's the business plan?' " Rosenthal recalled.
Since Dell didn't have one, they collaborated, and WindowGain now has space in Rosenthal's Newton offices. "Windowless space," Dell noted.
WindowGain can project almost anything of visual form: slides, flash graphics, animation, full-motion video, movies. Even RSS feeds from the Web or Web pages can be shown, or "dynamic data," such as headlines that are constantly updated.
WindowGain has agreed to partner with boston.com, the website affiliated with The Boston Globe, which will provide content for six months at the Downtown Crossing locations.
Dell majored in biology in college but has always worked with computers and been a visual artist. When he got that first call in New York from a business wanting to make use of his new advertising system, it was both exciting and disappointing. The call was from a furrier, who wanted to increase sales during the upcoming holiday season.
Dell's longtime business partner is Prem Hira, a friend who helped him start both the New York and Boston companies - and who's a 15-year vegetarian and won't even wear leather shoes.
"We decided we didn't want to do anything like that," Dell said.
Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at
tpalmer@globe.com.
