The Gainesville City Council is considering a measure that would reduce the number of billboards in the area by half.  The request is being made by one of the area’s primary billboard advertisers, Fairway Outdoor.  Fairway, one of the nation’s largest outdoor companies, has 67 structures in the Gainesville area.  Fairway’s Tim Hall has lived in Gainesville for more than 25 years.  He brought the proposal to the council last month, saying that they could reduce the number of static billboards around the city and replace them with a smaller number of digital billboards.  Hall says they would not be bigger than the current existing structures, plus they could be dimmed so as to be less distracting to drivers.  Hall adds that they would also be linked to police technology that would allow them to instantly broadcast Amber Alerts and weather warnings.  The Community Development staff was instructed to work out the details and present a resolution for Council’s consideration at a future work session.  To read the full story, click here.

Tens of thousands of billboards around the country will be used in “the biggest art show ever conceived” this summer.  “Art Everywhere” is a collaboration of five museums that will transform well known places like Times Square into art displays for the month of August.   Curators and the public will vote online to decide which images will be exhibited in the show. The five museums have nominated works by Roy Lichtenstein, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Georgia O’Keefe and others.  The winning works will be displayed beginning August 8 on nearly 50, 000 billboards, buses, subway platforms and other outdoor media.  For more information, click here.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is launching a new digital billboard campaign in hopes of catching an accused killer.  Billboards from Georgia to Maryland will show a photo of 51-year-old Kahlil Malik Tatum, a man charged with killing his wife in a Maryland motel.  According to the FBI, they want to “cast a wide net” in their search for the suspect, who was last seen at a Metro station in Maryland.  The FBI says Tatum may be traveling with 8 year old Relisha Tenau Rudd.  The girl’s family says she was in his care when repeated absences from school alerted authorities and prompted an investigation.  Tatum was a janitor at the homeless shelter where the girl’s family is staying.  For more details on this story, click here.

The Atlanta Hawks will soon be swooping into downtown Atlanta in a big way…In early April, the team will be installing a giant 3-D billboard of one of their star players dunking a basketball.  Paul Millsap, the Hawk’s forward, is the lucky man whose image has been made larger than life.  This unique billboard can soon be seen near I-85 north of Piedmont Circle in Atlanta.  But it’s not just a static promotion.  It’s also the launch of a chance for fans to win time with Millsap doing one of three activities of his choosing.  By calling a special number, fans can be entered for a chance to go to Vegas with Millsap, workout with him or play video games with him…all of which have additional prizes included.  For more information on the billboard and special promotions, click here.

It’s not high tech, but it is a trailblazing idea in the billboard industry.  Swedish retailer, IKEA, famous for making great use of small space, has teamed up with a German ad agency to make great use of small billboard space.  They are employing red, green and blue lights (RGB for short) to essentially triple the size of small billboards.  The use of the 3 light colors allows 3 different colored messages to be on one billboard, each one showing in sequence when a different color light is lit.  To see a video of the billboard and how it’s done, click here.

Billboards in New York are getting attention even when they are not displaying an advertisement.  Executives at Van Wagner Communications, owner of several billboards, didn’t like the look of a blank board or a “Your Ad Here” message when there was no current advertiser.  So they got people talking when they used the boards to display simple phrases that included pictures of food, like “The Big (picture of cheese)” and “Cool as a (photo of a cucumber).”  People thought the billboards were posted by a clever doctor encouraging people to eat healthy.  Others thought it might be some sort of inside joke that they were not “in” on.  What the billboards were selling was, in fact, the billboard itself.  The campaign was a way to let advertisers know that the board was available to rent.  For more on the story, click here.

For more than a decade, a domestic terrorist has evaded the law…but his freedom may soon be coming to an end.  Starting today, as a part of their National Digital Billboard Initiative, the FBI is putting the face of Daniel Andreas San Diego on billboards from coast to coast hoping someone will recognize him.  He is wanted in connection with two bombings at a biotechnology company and another at a nutritional products corporation in California back in 2003.  San Diego has ties all over California, in Massachusetts and in several countries overseas including Germany, Spain and France.  The FBI hopes the billboards will prompt someone to come forward with information.  For more details, click here.

It wasn’t long ago that the country watched as a mere 2 inches of snow crippled Georgia and left thousands of people stranded on highways around Atlanta.  No doubt the snow weary and seasoned drivers in the North had a field day making fun of the South in such conditions.  But after the latest Georgia storm, when new technology was used to connect digital billboards with a live Twitter feed to alert drivers of bad conditions and closures, folks up north took notice.  Now officials in New York are calling Atlanta for advice on how they can use this technology to better communicate during what seems to be one of the worst winters they’ve had in decades.    To see the full article, click here.

Winter weather has been battering the country for the last few weeks, but this time when it hit Georgia, emergency management officials were ready…and they did something that has never been done in the state before.  They used newly available technology to post live Twitter feeds on digital boards in real time from both the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the GA Department of Transportation.  Hundreds of digital billboards around the state and in Atlanta displayed messages about open shelters and warnings about areas with icy conditions and accident locations. The technology was also available for the last storm that hit the area, but officials said the agencies did not have time to coordinate its use for that storm.  For the full article, click here.

It’s happening more and more around the country…and until now, dueling billboards have been mostly pitting luxury cars against one another.  But now, there’s a new duel going on in L.A. that has nothing to do with who has the nicest car… These billboards are at war!  On L.A.’s popular Sunset Boulevard, very authentic looking cannons are perched atop billboards aimed at the opposite side of the street.  On one, stands Captain Morgan…who is apparently at war with the skull and crossbones looking pirate representing the new show “Black Sails” on the Starz channel.  So why is the popular rum representative at war with a T.V. show?  To branch out and have some fun, according to reps from Starz involved with the ad campaign.  To see the billboards and read more on the duel and the reasons behind it, click here.