Here are some of the things we discussed. I added links where possible.

Budget

• Creating an iOS or Android App probably costs around $35K

Are there any grants out there that are specifically aimed at mobile?

• Some states – Virginia has done this – tourist bureau (visiting Virginia).
• Heritage tourism

What are the Platforms out there:

• Websites optimized for mobile
• Mobile Apps versus Web Apps
• HTML5 is the next big thing
• Think about iPad/Tablets – Flipboard as an example on the iPad
• Museums with under 50,000 visitors typically won’t have a mobile app
• Museums Mobile group has some data on museums who have created links to mobile museum apps and consultants
• Twitter #mtogo

Contexts

Platforms

• WordPress, Omeka, and Drupal all have plugins to help re-use web content on mobile devices

Permissions

• Difficult to get licenses for images – especially art.
• Closed app might be best platform for purchased use licenses – a one-time use licence is possible

Interpretations and Interactivity

• Don’t miss out on an opportunity – don’t just replicate an analogue idea – i.e. more text
• Ask new questions – maybe from the perspective of outside the museum – what do you see?
• Mobile platform forces designers to think more about interpretation – single objects
• Mobile Apps can help create a three step process for visiting a museum – pre-visit planning, interactive experience at the museum, and follow up on interests

Tours

• Locacious
• Broadcastr
• GeoCaching linked up with an audio tour
• Layar
• QR codes or Bar Codes linked to a website
• Google Goggles
• Wikihood – content that is around you

GIS Data – Recycling for new use

Content Creation

Non-Location specific mobile apps

• Louvre app as an example
• Draw could be in education – limits access – not the entire web.

Why Mobile?

• Demographics skewed toward poorer populations (US and Worldwide – see Nielson statistics)
• Pew Foundation – Gardner Research both have statistics
• iPad – these are different. There might be even greater potential for the iPad – has better functionality for interpretation and in-depth learning.

Games

• scvngr – scavenger hunts that could be created with historical topics.

Favorite Apps?

• Meanderthal
• Louvre
• Culture Now – monuments
• Historical NOLA
• Museum of London: StreetMuseum
• Brooklyn Museum – great post here about “lessons learned”
• Philadelphia City Archives has an app – Philly History

I posted this as a comment on the original post about “we want your ideas”, but that sort of got buried, so I’ll repost and add to it:

“Hand-held computing and historical walking tours/podcasts: How can we provide a platform independent multimedia experience that can be easily adopted by historic sites and towns?”

I would like to exchange ideas and experiences people have had creating mobile apps (iPhone, Android, or a more generic WebApp) for creating walking tours. When I have students work on walking tours right now, we tend to simply create downloadable podcasts and use the cover art function to display photos or maps. This works relatively well, but I have been wondering if there was a way to make this more dynamic. I’d also like find a way that this approach could be adopted at a low cost for museums to use within an exhibition.

Some background: Last May I was in Erfurt Germany and visited the new Jewish museum, which had an excellent walking tour of the exhibit that used iPod Touches in the place of an audio wand. The problem for me, however, was that it was clearly a “hacked” iPod app – or some sort of magic that I am unaware of that does not allow you to ever access the home screen. The app was “locked” in a sense. I looked up the company that designed the app and it is an entirely proprietary product that they create for museums. As such, it would be a large financial investment for smaller museums and historical societies that would like to offer such tours.

I know that there are others interested in mobile apps (or off-the-desktop-computing as the current turn of phrase is) and wouldn’t mind combining my interests here with others who are also interested in all things mobile.