A couple of stories caught my attention today. First, Reach Media Group (RMG), a digital out-of-home company that we’ve previously written about, signed a deal to push New York Times content to its network of 800 coffee shops, cafes and eateries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

According to the press release, RMG’s digital place-based network (formerly known as “Danoo”) has been entirely re-envisioned to emulate the familiar, trusted design of NYTimes.com. We think this move will add considerable credibility to the fledgling network. It can offer a more compelling content experience (assuming you find the NYTimes content compelling) and ultimately, a more legitimate advertising sales proposition.

For some time now, we’ve said that digital out-of-home or digital place-based advertising models will develop rapidly over the next five years. But this scenario relies on the consolidation of the market, more standardized advertising options, and more targeting and mobile content connectivity.

We think we’ll get there. The potential for consumers to view condensed content on a screen and then connect to www.NYT2day.com for the full story offers advertisers a proxy for performance, and the user a simple way to more fully engage in the content.

The second interesting story today comes from The Omaha World Herald, which reports that New York equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors has made an offer to purchase Omaha-based InfoGroup — formerly known as InfoUSA. A deal like this has been expected since late last year, when the company hired an advisor to essentially find a buyer.

According to The World Herald, the sale of InfoGroup has been supported by Vin Gupta, the company’s founder and former CEO. While Gupta is no longer an officer of the company, he still sits on the board of directors. In our view, InfoGroup’s sale makes good sense for the company and the shareholders. Taking it private will enable the company to continue its re-branding process from InfoUSA to InfoGroup.

For years we’ve been asked by companies around the globe if InfoUSA or any of its competitors offered similar business listing information. Shifting the name to InfoGroup would certainly enable the company to expand it offerings beyond its current borders.

Should this deal be finalized, it would presumably be the end of Gupta’s involvement, active or passive, in the company he founded almost 40 years ago with $100 and the vision to compile, aggregate and verify the names, addresses and telephone numbers of millions of businesses in America. Certainly, it has been a difficult job. But Gupta and his pioneering colleagues can proudly take credit for delivering hundreds of millions of qualified leads to SMBs.

How about that fourth screen? This growing media sector is projected to grow at an annual CAGR of 13.5 percent through 2013 with a total category take of $3.7 billion. But, trying to define what DOOH is and how to make it an effective part of any advertising campaign is still a work in progress. However, important strides are being made and this morning’s panel participants are active players across the DOOH ecosystem.

This panel was moderated by Rick Ducey, BIA/Kelsey’s Chief Strategy Officer, and our panel participants were Sonya Rosas, practice leader, DOOH for the Interpublic Emerging Media Lab; Stephen Randall, CEO of LocalModa; and Adam Bleibtreu, CEO of Retail Media Co., an owner of DOOH networks.

First some basic facts. DOOH is any combination of media assets that include digital billboards that rotate several ad messages per minute to place based media seen where people congregate from health clubs and taverns to elevators and airports. While the general outdoor market is heavily consolidated (three companies accumulate 85 percent of all dollars spent), the DOOH sector is not. It’s expected that many of the existing outdoor companies will be in the market to acquire DOOH assets as the growth in this part of the out of home sector is expected to outpace the general outdoor market ( billboards).

The panelists discussed the need for DOOH to be easier to plan and buy. There has been some improvement in the metrics used to measure the ROI of these media assets. However, there was a warning to marketers that all screens used in a campaign must be connected. The phone plays a critical interactive role in DOOH campaigns and allows the consumer to take part in the call to action on the screen. The flexibility of this new platform is quite attractive as messages can be changed on the fly to address different audiences.

Some of the new face recognition technology is allowing marketers to see who the audience is and how it changes at different times of the days. Messages can then be adapted so that there is relevance to what’s being displayed. This ability to allow the consumer to make an emotional attachment to the screen is a critical element in the success of the message. Location is also essential. Some venues work better than others (think gas pumps and elevators). Public places can make it harder to make DOOH work but it’s not impossible to do so. (Think Times Square).

The grocery stores are also great laboratories as new shopping carts can allow shoppers to enter their shopping lists onboard the cart. The cart is aware of where the cart is in the store and specific sales and promotional messages can be passed along to the consumer based on the shoppers’ profile and based on what’s on their list.

Taxis have also proven to be a good venue for DOOH. These units have been mostly limited to New York and Chicago but that’s soon to change. The GPS coordinates of these taxis allow messages to be delivered to the passenger that are based in the neighborhood of where the taxi happens to be located. These units are quite popular with advertisers and have sold out even in this difficult advertising environment.

There was also some discussion on the successful selling of these new digital and place based boards. One panelist believed that they made the right decision to partner with ABC to sell their inventory. The second sale is the hardest to make and managing the account is critical to the seller. CBS and NBC are also both in the digital out of home business with existing partnerships.

This sector is ripe for consolidation and the next 12-18 months should be interesting to watch as this new and vital advertising platform continues its impressive growth.