as a student at the sorbonne im doing my thesis on social network
and web 2.0 tools, France is just at the begining of the reflexion of
relationship between museum and the web, and the presence of french
museum on facebook is nearly anecdotical.
The growing part
social networks is taking in every day life can bring great opportunities
for museum, but it also bring the need of deeper reflexion.
As a part of my research and to enhance the reflexion of museum, i would like to start a discussion on the way museum go on social networks. The point is to begin a reflexion on the fact which bring the museum on social network, what the museum seek on those networks, what are the benfits. Can you think about a special thing that make you whant to bring your museum on the social network. Do you think it was just for the fact to be in it, to make a place there, to promote the museum. Or did you choose to bring your museum on the social network, after long discussion and in the optic of giving a better knowledge to your audience. As the social network facebook is going in his second year, museum must step aside and think about their presence on social networks, in order that this presence became not just a way to promote the museum but a new way of life for the museum like the internet did in his time.
museums and social networks
If you look at what the majority of Museums are doing with Facebook and MySpace it is incredibly disappointing, they set up a page, post a few pictures and gain a small audience, only when people like N8, Brooklyn Museum and Tate have put real effort in to learning the rules of these networks has they made any impact.
But for me the more interesting side of the development of social networks is the changing expectation that this has created. Web users, especially younger web users expect a more interactive experience. They don't want to just see curated content, they want to be the curator and have a creative relationship with museums which allows them to mash-up the museum and share what they have made with friends.
Museums need to look at how they can build this kind of engaging experience in to their own websites and venues, rather then jumping on the Facebook bandwagon.
Jim Richardson
MW2008 paper: Social Presence: New Value For Museums ...
There are a number of very good papers that address this issue in the Proceedings of the upcoming Museums and the Web conference. this one is particularly relevant to this discussion:
As the discussion on the MCG list today showed [starting with Frankie's post here -- follow it by date or thread] broad generalizations don't really get us very far. Studies like this one help to parse the opportunity, and the risk.
/jt
j. trant archives & museum informatics www.archimuse.com
to broaden the reflexion on social network and museum
As a growing part of museum decide to go on social network, a typology of
museum on social network can be done and rise the issue of the benefits of
such a presence for museums of fine art.
does this presence rise
new opportunities for museums of fine art, what kind of opportunities in
term of audience, new ways of interpretation, new ways of collaboration?
Museums on social networks, benefits and issues
Please join in the ongoing discussion about museum on Facebook on the 'Museums on Facebook' group on
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8173798651
susan
Brave New Museum
Together with Michiel van Iersel I was asked some time ago to write an article for the publication of Culture 2.0 conference in Amsterdam. The article is titled 'Brave New Museum - A Conversation about Museums in the Digital Age', and tries to overview the opportunities and threats of web 2.0 for museums.
P.S.
Might I direct you to my blog, where I have written about some examples of museums and Web 2.0?
Amsterdam museum community
Dear Meriam,
good to see someone opening this topic here. I can give you some insight in an example from Amsterdam, where we have founded a collective marketing organisation for the Amsterdam museums whose task it is to think about the relationship between museums and young adults between 18 and 35. One of the events we organize is an annual museum night. Over 40 museums participate, and a crowd of 26.000 with an average age of 32.8 visits 4 museums on that night. 7 out of 10 visitors is between 16 and 35.
One of our partners is a social network called Hyves, which is the Dutch equivalent of Facebook, and a market leader in the Netherlands by miles. We contacted them in 2006 to become our partner, so we have working together for over 18 months. The reason why we did is because we wanted to reach an audience that does rarely or never visit the local museums, in their natural habitat, that is online on hyves.nl. We are not simply present there, but try to understand the rules and modes of the network in order to be able to connect with the users. The simplest way is to syndicate our blog to Hyves. We have also opened a group, which has more than 1700 members right now. Here we upload pictures, videos and podcasts of our activities, and we actively update the page to inform the interested. We have also sold tickets here for our museum night with a discount for the members only, to reward them for their membership. This has given us national media coverage, since we were the first organization to sell tickets on Hyves. People respond well to our service, but also ventilate their nuisance. We think this is a good thing, since we can now engage with them, discuss topics and invite our visitors to help us shape future events and services.
To answer your question: we seek interaction and engagement. I am interested in learning from other experiences.
Best,
Juha
Post new comment