286aa12bb0
Point 7 of the page-wording review. The pages no longer show their data structure as headings, and they no longer explain their own conventions. - Level 1 is one screen: claim, status badge, three figures, the technology row, and one sentence carrying one link. Measured in headless Chrome at 1440x900: 1404-1845 px tall before, exactly 900 px (no scroll) after, on all six area pages. - DocPage: no kicker line, no visible level label, no "Evidence for this page" heading or instruction note, no "Drill-downs" list, no "Status <word> - sentence" footer. The artefact table starts at level 2, under the heading "Artefacts"; the history timeline is level 2 only. - Landing page: "Start here" link text gone, "How to read this site" panel gone, the footer's status-label explainer gone. - Content, presentation only, no claim softened: the leading H1 that duplicated the page title removed from all 41 documents; level 1 bodies reduced to the constraint as ordinary prose plus the way in; "**Status: ...**" prefixes removed from the artefact stubs; "## Drill-downs" and "## Period and confidence" removed from the level 2 pages, with the cross-area links moved into the prose. - The six level 1 claims are now sentences with a subject, and use commas instead of middots. Same facts, no new ones. Not in this commit: the 35 level 2 and 3 claims still use the compact CV style. That is a voice decision for Sam, not a wording tidy-up. make validate: 41 documents, 0 violations. go test ./...: pass. (cherry picked from commit 03009f80fc7815ad7719412e125df9297a6e653f)
59 lines
5.6 KiB
Markdown
59 lines
5.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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id: products-business
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area: products
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level: 2
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title: "Software sold and operated — with the status stated"
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claim: "Three product lines from one workshop — signage on commodity hardware · the site builder that produced the marketing · and a lost-property tag system — with three businesses still running the signage today."
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confidence: running
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period: "2014–"
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tech: [PHP, JavaScript, three.js, FFmpeg, ImageMagick, HDMI-CEC, Raspberry Pi, ESP32, QR, RFID]
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metrics: [{label: "businesses currently running the product", value: 3}, {label: "adoptions over time", value: 12}, {label: "product lines", value: 3}]
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artefacts: [{type: doc, label: "Commercial signage on commodity hardware", url: "content/products/l3/products-signage.md"}, {type: doc, label: "The site builder behind it", url: "content/products/l3/products-websitebuilder.md"}, {type: doc, label: "Where-Woof — deployed and pre-market", url: "content/products/l3/products-where-woof.md"}, {type: doc, label: "Signage infrastructure — screens as a managed fleet", url: "content/platform/l3/platform-signage.md"}]
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public: true
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last_verified: 2026-10-26
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tags: [products, business, signage, where-woof, positioning]
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---
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**Capability statement.** Building software for a client and building software as a product are different jobs. This page is the second one: a market that was overpriced, a substitute built on hardware that costs a fraction of the incumbent systems, customers who adopted it, and the operational cost of keeping it running.
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## The commercial story
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The digital signage market sells walls: thousands of dollars of hardware with fans, cooling and glass, locked to monopoly software. The product was built as a deliberate inversion of that — a system that runs on a small Raspberry Pi or a microcontroller, drives any HDMI screen including an ordinary monitor, and adapts to the board rather than requiring the board to adapt to it.
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It manages screens as a fleet: power on and off, rotation, mirroring, multi-screen layout, coordinated boards, and synchronised playback across screens in one site or across sites. Users build complex animations or simple image rotations, and the system presents whatever suits the display it finds.
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Demonstrations were rolled out in a hair salon and a financial services business. Around twelve businesses adopted it over time and three still run it today. That number is deliberately specific: twelve is cumulative adoption, three is current, and the difference is the honest measure of a product that was sold but not scaled.
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The same workshop produced the CMS behind the marketing — a templated site builder with editors for drawing, image, video and text animation, video effects and transitions, 3D object import and text extrusion — built on JavaScript and three.js with FFmpeg, ImageMagick and PHP tools for documents, and rendering image animation on Raspberry Pi hardware.
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The third product is different in kind: Where-Woof is a QR and RFID tag system for lost property. It is deployed and being deployed now. It has **not** gone to market, and this page will not call it commercial until it has.
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## Evidence
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| Claim | Evidence | Artefact |
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|---|---|---|
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| Signage replaced thousand-dollar wall systems with commodity hardware | Any HDMI screen · Raspberry Pi or ESP32 class player · fleet control | [Signage product](l3/products-signage.md) |
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| Twelve adoptions over time, three businesses running now | Adoption history and current customers | [Signage product](l3/products-signage.md) |
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| A templated builder produced the marketing sites | Editors for drawing · video · image and animation; FFmpeg and ImageMagick pipeline | [WebsiteBuilder](l3/products-websitebuilder.md) |
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| Where-Woof is deployed and pre-market | Device and tag system in use; no market launch | [Where-Woof](l3/products-where-woof.md) |
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| Screens are managed as a fleet | HDMI-CEC control of power · rotation · layout | [Signage infrastructure](../platform/l3/platform-signage.md) |
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## Product status — stated plainly
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| Product | What it is | Status | Next |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| Display screen media (Audas Media) | Digital signage on commodity hardware with multi-screen fleet control | Delivered · three businesses running · being rebuilt with AI | Strip back to signage only and rebuild on the current stack |
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| WebsiteBuilder | Templated site builder and CMS with media editors and social output | Delivered · retained | Retired as a general product; kept as the content engine |
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| Where-Woof | QR and RFID tags for lost property | Deployed · pre-market | Take to market — not done yet |
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## Trade-offs and limits
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- **Scope discipline came late.** The builder carried a shop, invoicing, room management, calendars, presentations, documents, bulk messaging and client management. Product surface grew faster than a one-person support model could carry, which is why the plan now is to keep the signage and the content engine and retire the rest.
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- **The rebuild is unfinished.** "Rebuilding with AI" is a statement of work in progress, not a launch. It is labelled as such on every page that mentions it.
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- **One product is pre-revenue by design.** Where-Woof is deployed before it is sold. Describing it as commercial would be a lie that a careful reader would find in a minute.
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- **Support is the hidden cost.** Customers running the product for years is the strongest evidence of value and the strongest argument for keeping the surface small.
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Signage infrastructure is also platform work: [screens as a managed fleet](../platform/l3/platform-signage.md).
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Each product carries its own status, and the two caveats — a rebuild in progress and a launch not yet made — are in the table above rather than in a footnote.
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