Museums and the Splinternet
Posted in Presentism, Technology on 09. Jun, 2010
Kids nowadays. Remember when there was such a thing as standards?
The Internet, all you needed was a standard screen and any browser. Now its all ep-ods and ep-ads and tablets and apps that don’t work with Android. Everything’s behind a password. In my day, we didn’t have to lock our data.
Whyioutta *shakes cane*
Welcome to the Splinternet, where your website might not work and Google can’t search it.
The shattering cannot be undone.
Here’s what to do: choose your devices carefully — investments in one cannot be transferred easily to others if you make a mistake.
Museumsandstuff, after putting the TAP video on tumblr.
I want an iPhone/iPod Touch so badly.
Is the fact that so many fantastic innovative museum things are occurring on an exceptionally expensive pieces of kit a form of social inclusion?
As an Android phone owner, I can’t think of a single museum making apps for it. A quick search on the market brings up a bunch of tourism and picture apps. Not a single official museum app.
Where’s the inclusion? Where has that bastion of museum work “Access” gone? We were doing everything we could to break down the barriers to the museum-loving public and then we go and provide all this innovation to a technological elite. Then this innovation is at the mercy of the sanctioning process of the platform and the limitations of the device.
Just how are museums going to deal with the Splinternet?
I guess the saving grace is that with TAP (and similar museum-based tech) you have access to the gadget at the museum. This is routinely seen as the “next generation” audio guide.
I wasn’t sure about that, so I didn’t mention it. I had wondered that you could pick up an iPod there, but it fails as being useful to smaller museums: an opensource program where you have to buy several expensive bits of kit to make it fully available.
Another point of being a slave to the platform.
I think I’d be pretty safe in placing a bet that the vast majority of people, including museum visitors, (and me), have neither type of phone – so in essence isn’t it just levels of elitism, and lack of access to which you are referring?
The other issue isn’t this more that an issue of elitism, and also an issue of the increasing monopolization of such technologies by certain tech companies?
ps. I love how the phrase “splinternet” sounds like some kind of straight to TV spy movie from the early 90′s. lol.
Some museums are developing HTML-based mobile applications or sites to avoid producing a site that only works on specific phones. There’s some existing mobile-targeted WordPress themes to provide a cheap way of producing content viewable on any phone with a web browser. http://powerhousemuseum.com/m is one HTML based mobile site I can think of.
For richer applications, the iPhone app marketplace has a bit more momentum, but I would expect museums to increasing build parallel apps for iPhone and Android, possibly through HTML5 rather than OS specific software.
Seems like the splinter goes back a long way. If you want real access, then folks who barely have access to… electricity are being left behind fast. Smaller museums often have some facility with this audience, actually. As do large, not to exclude.
Putting the platform in the museum is a good way to close this gap. Small museums should pester the heck out of Apple for free iPods. Think Apple may not survive in the long run if they don’t get back into the education/donation business as they did 15 or so years ago.
Hey Pete,
Thanks for the kind words and coverage of the TAP platform. Couldn’t agree with you more about the limitations of a single platform for delivering mobile content.
If you’ll look at our recent activity with TAP you’ll see that we are currently in beta stage with some work that builds an HTML front end to the same content authoring tools we’ve released as open-source. You can see this on any internet-capable phone at http://www.imamuseum.org now. If you watch the “100 Acres” menu over the next few weeks you’ll see us adding lots of content there constituting a “tour” of an art and nature park that our museum is opening.
Once we’re convinced that we’ve got all the kinks worked out here then we’ll also release that bit as open-source too.
Our initial choice to release an iPod-based version of a tour was based on the fact that we had over 2G of video that we wanted to include with an exhibition of Spanish Religious art that was here in the fall. We felt it was a bit unreasonable to expect people to stream that content over our limited wireless networks here in the museum, and wanted to “test the waters” around charging for that kind of content via rentals. It should be noted that our efforts for mobile content in 100 Acres will be free to the public.
Thanks again!
Rob
I attended my first Museums & the Web conference back in April and found myself weirdly uncomfortable with all the emphasis on delivering content and experiences via devices that few of our constituents might be expected to have … maybe I’m just behind the curve … but I do wonder if we run the risk of creating more barriers, rather than breaking them down.