Please add Mobeum by Open Museum to Nancy Proctor's list of mobile tour services available to museums.
Mobeum, a web-based museum visitor mobile tour, is currently in alpha testing at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth and will become available to any museum as of April 1, 2010. Mobeum uses the same server and content as Open Museum, an online network of participatory museums independently curated by art and history museums, artists, artist collectives and non-profit cultural organizations. Both Mobeum and Open Museum are totally free of cost to the curator and visitor (i.e. there are and will be no fees of any kind to implement or use the mobile tour). After much deliberation (and even development!), we decided against building an iPhone app, because we wanted to optimize for visitor access and future development. Mobeum, which fits seamlessly with Open Museum's desktop and mobile browser views, works on a variety of smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry...) and devices (iPod Touch, iPad). There are lots of good reasons for and against the iPhone app, which Ted Forbes captures in this excellent post here on why Dallas Art Museum decided to go web-based: < http://blog.tedforbes.com/2010/02/web-apps-vs-iphone-apps-for-museum-content/ >. When considering which mobile tour technology to use, I think it is important to inquire about the business form and funding structure of the service provider. We decided to found Open Museum (and its services such as Mobeum) as a not-for-profit venture. The service is provided by the 501c3 non-profit Heritance and the code is owned and developed by Zirgoflex L3c, a Vermont social venture with low-profit designated aims. (L3c is a new hybrid business form adopted only in a few states.) Open Museum which is committed to remaining not-for-profit and free, raises its funding through grants, foundation partnerships, donations, and for-fee consulting and other services at non-profit rate. Echoing Nancy, any museum considering going mobile, needs to examine the hidden costs of creating their mobile (and any online!) content. It has been our experience that the primary barrier a museums faces is finding the time to plan, select, speak, write, edit... the content they hope to share with the public. In a blog post, "Mobeum, the Content Creation Iceberg", I recount our experiences working with the Hood to create their Mobeum content: < http://blog.openmuseum.org/2010/02/now-that-mobeum-is-up-and-running.html>. If you'd like more info, we'll be talking about this experience at Museums in the Web and have a written a paper we'd be happy to share. I'm also happy to chat on or off line. -- Maureen Doyle Heritance, Executive Director Open Museum P.O. Box 1564 Norwich, Vermont 05055 USA +1(802)649-1945 maureen at openmuseum.org www.openmuseum.org Connect with people, objects and museums at www.openmuseum.org
