The document discusses designing mobile content and experiences for museum audiences. It argues for moving beyond traditional audio tours and instead focusing on social media, facilitating conversations, and connecting communities of interest. Examples are provided of mobile experiences that engage audiences both inside and outside the museum.
11. Fraunhofer Institute, Kunstmuseum Bonn: ‘Beat Zoderer’ exhibition (Listen project) 2003 Fraunhofer Institute, Kunstmuseum Bonn: ‘Beat Zoderer’ exhibition (Listen project) 2003 Thinking beyond the technology
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14. Thinking cross-platform & about pre-, during & post-visit Audio player Multimedia player Personal media player Cellphone Smart Mobile Browser phones Mobile App Short Soundbite X X X X X X Long Soundtrack x x X (x) X X Interactive X X X Links X X X Feedback X X X Social media X X
15. Thinking outside the Acropolis The Reynold’s Center, home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum & National Portrait Gallery
16. Thinking about the Agora Kogod Courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum; quotation by Steven Zucker, 2008
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18. Photo by Mike Lee, 2007; from the American Art Museum’s Flickr Group And reach audiences beyond the museum’s walls…
27. Gardening Change Model* Build a platform & cultivate Web 2.0 as a way of thinking about work * Via Josh Greenberg, NYPL & Mike Edson @mpedson Every user is a hero In their own epic journey http://tinyurl.com/y4g5c27
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34. Let the artists be our guides Oxygenate! 2006-7 Joanna Rajkowska Words Drawn in Water, 2005 Janet Cardiff Follow Through , 2005 Jennifer Crowe & Scott Paterson Euphorium 2002-3 Antenna Theater
Notes de l'éditeur
How many people have taken an audio or multimedia tour? Did they enjoy their experience?
How many people have taken an audio or multimedia tour? Did they enjoy their experience?
Yet all too often, visitors complain that audio tours give them this sort of experience: http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/themasites/mediaplayer/index.jsp?media=19799217&refernr=19265092&portalnr=4158511&hostname=geschiedenis&mediatype=video&portalid=geschiedenis Although this video shows an example of one of the earliest tour technologies from the 1960s, excavated by Loic Tallon, the perception of audio tours is that they are not terribly different today in terms of inspiring a herd mentality among users, producing crowding around exhibits and a sort of dumbed-down, one-size-fits-all experience. All the issues that have plagued audio tours throughout their history are visible here: The linearity of the tour lead to a herd-mentality among visitors and crowding around exhibits In addition the challenges of: Hygiene: led to one of the earliest audio tour technology debates: headphones vs wands? Distribution issues always a challenge, but complexity also driven by technology choices, including the headphones or wand choice Very homogenous audience
But in fact, I think of SAAM like this: a multinodal and multimodal network - a distributed network, in fact. My aim is to build content, experiences, and services that reach visitors wherever and whenever they happen to be on this network.
Some are now predicting that mobile devices will be our primary means of accessing the Internet by 2020. If that sounds like a dotcom boom kind of prediction, that’s probably a fair way to characterize the hype. In comparison to fixed web’s development history, mobile is somewhere between 1995 and 1998: a wild, wild west boom town where fortunes are going to be made and lost probably even faster than in the 20 th century. But don’t get me wrong: I’m a believer!
Another way to represent this is as a multi-tiered architecture with up to three kinds of content: 1. -+-+-+-+-+ The Soundtrack 2. o o o o o The Soundbites 3. / | / | / Links
As Clay Shirky might say, there is no point in fetishizing the technology or arguing that museums and their audiences necessarily need audio tours, or iPhone apps, or any other flavor-of-the-month mobile platform. Instead, I believe that now is a time for lots and lots of experiments that take us far outside our comfort zone, outside the audio tour box, if you will. I’m not going to pretend to have any crystal balls or easy answers for these chaotic times in the mobile landscape. But I hope I’ve offered a few principles, theories and tips that may help us navigate this transformational period for mobile interpretation in museums. By putting our visitors at the center of our Museum practice by listening to our visitors and studying how they are already engaging with the Museum through social media and their personal networks, I think we can already identify some important needs that should inform the development of the 21 st century museum and curatorial practice. In the Museum as Agora, we need curators (and museums) who: Inspires us to connect, learn & experience; Makes the Museum relevant to our lives; Helps us see, read & think critically; Engages us in a conversation with experts and ‘citizens’. There will be many more new models and paradigms to emerge in the coming decade, butif you’re willing to join us in this journey, share a few risks and a lot of conversations about the mobile experiences we’ve all had, we might just, when the dust settles, get the mobile interpretation that museums and their audiences need.
In the museum as agora, our audiences access our content through a wide range of platforms beyond the museum’s walls and website
As Chris Anderson noted in his talk at SI 2.0, it is our hobbies – often niche activities and content - that inspires the most passion in individuals. And the niche is the space that museums know best. They’re staffed to a large extent by people who have been lucky enough to turn their passions into professions: specialists who understand subjects in the greatest depth and finest nuances, working with rare content and collections. And yet for over 50 years, the blockbuster has been the engine that drives the mobile interpretation industry. I want to ask if there are business models that play to our natural strengths with niche content and niche audiences?
Like museums, mobile lends itself both to the extreme personalization of niche activities, and to connecting disparate, passionate subject specialists and longtail markets. There is a powerful network effect of connecting lots and lots of people who are passionate about the same niches. So I have been asking myself of late: can mobile help museums conceive of new business models, products and practices that play to museums’ strengths in the longtail and niche markets, rather than perpetuate often futile attempts to compete in mass markets?
Mobile is an ideal vehicle for niche content, experiences & audiences because both personal – intimate, even - and social. The highly personal nature of the mobile experience also makes mobile a great vehicle for the kind of niche content and experiences that museums excel at. + How many people do you let whisper in your ear? Or put content onto your personal, mobile device that is always with you, and usually carried very close to your body? Although it’s arguably the social applications that make mobile products revolutionary, it may just be the intimate, personal nature of the mobile experience that ‘makes them stick(y)’! ;-)