ArtBabble Comes Out of Beta With a Surprise: Win

Coming out of radio silence for an important news bulletin.

ArtBabble, which shut its doors for some tinkering before the proper launch, is open and has something special to show us.

I first mentioned ArtBabble back in February and was impressed by the design, the video delivery system and general elegance of the site as a whole. What it did do and didn’t do made, for me, a successful project. What it didn’t do was try to be a web 2.0 thing by trying to be a new facebook or twitter for museums. What it was doing providing content. Real original content properly made with some direction. You may miss how this is important in the world of linkblogs and retweets, but it didn’t pass me by that I was being told something and should listen.

The social aspect are in there, everyone gets a profile and discussion threads attached to every video. But whilst youtube is like trying to be social in a (very loud, very full, obnoxious) bar, ArtBabble is like attending a lecture with progressive seminars.

ArtBabble has now lost its betanity and we find out who its been mixing with. Namely Art21, LACMA, MoMA, SFMOMA, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the New York Public Library. They all have a few videos up and I expect they’ll have more soon.

That’s six museums and one non-profit collaborating to give to annotated mini-documentaries.

Go. Babble On.