Extended Museum Exhibits

As time goes on more and more people have 'smartphones,' or at least phones with abilities traditionally attributed to smart phones.

While some organizations have begun to take advantage of this fact, many more have not. I will be discussing some ways in which the capabilities of modern phones can enhance old entertainments such as a museum.

There are several ways in which this idea could work. On its most simplest level an art museum, for example, could release a phone app for their museum. While wandering through the museum the phone could figure out what exhibits you are looking at. This could be done in any number of ways including RFIDs, WiFi, bar code scanning, or even image recognition of the exhibit itself.

The app would then pull up additional information about the exhibit, or information related to it. I know I have been in situations at museums where I wish I had had more knowledge at my fingertips beyond what was provided by the signs and placards in the museum. In our theoretical art museum the app could allow you to bring up a bio of the artist, find the location of 'related' paintings, or perhaps see pictures of other paintings by the artist not on display.

Depending on how the exhibit identified itself, this information could either be transmitted from the exhibit itself, or more likely from central server that the app would reference.

Other 'museum like' locations could take advantage of this. A zoo for instance is a prime candidate. The app could pull up all sorts of additional information on the animals on display. It could even mention the 'personal' histories of these animals for those who were interested: when they were acquired by the zoo or born for example. If the zoo had cameras in the animal's pen, perhaps people could then watch the video feed on their phone.

Now, much of this could be accomplished with signs. But it seems to me, the more signs and more text at any given exhibit the less of it will be read on average. This would provide additional information to those who desired it. It is very similar to renting a set of headphones to listen to an audio tour at a museum. In fact, I see this idea as a natural evolution of those audio cassette tours. It would not even be unreasonable for a museum to charge for this app. 

In addition to providing additional information the system could be interactive. The app, in its settings, could perhaps allow for an 'age' preference. This could allow for content to be better targeted to demographics. It would make it easier to create an exhibit that would be both 'kid friendly' while interesting to adults. 

I mentioned earlier that there were several ways that this could be implemented. Now, each museum could make their own custom apps, but this would be inefficient. A great opening for a new product would be for a single company to make such an app (and hardware to be installed at exhibits) and market it to museums. The product could be called something like "Museum Plus."

A unified system used by multiple museums would reduce deployment costs. It would also be better for the end user, as they would only ever need to obtain and learn how to use one app rather than a different one for every museum they attend. I feel the potential profit in marketing such a system worldwide could be quite impressive.

While this idea will not revolutionize anyone's life, it is these incremental steps forward that marks mankind's progress towards  fully integrating technology into out daily existence.