Comments for koven j. smith dot com

Comment on Making the Call: Evaluating Mobile Projects in Museums – Museum Computer Network 2009 Conference – 11/12/09 by MuseumMobile Wiki » Dinosaurs: The American Museum of Natural History App

MuseumMobile Wiki » Dinosaurs: The American Museum of Natural History App — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:47:50 +0000

[...] little app, and a good illustration of the kind of bite-sized, straight-to-product approach that Koven Smith advocated in his 2009 presentation for MCN in Portland, Oregon. I also like that it works without [...]

Comment on Homunculus by Homunculus · phiffer.org world wide web site

Homunculus · phiffer.org world wide web site — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:35:13 +0000

[...] from HUMBLE TV on Vimeo. Scored by Koven Smith ≡ [...]

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Sarah Dines

Sarah Dines — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:55:19 +0000

Koven,
Would love to see those pics if you make it back to the museum.

Meanwhile, I’ve done the SF MOMA rooftop app on site and at home. I’ll send you my thoughts if you’re interested. Let me know your email. I’m at first.last@gmail.com

Cheers, Sarah

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Morgan

Morgan — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:50:20 +0000

Hi Koven,
I think you summarize the experience with the iPod in this exhibit quite well, both its strengths and weaknesses.
I found it took me about 10 minutes to get used to how to use the iPod best while also viewing the pieces. This turned out to mean that I did not look up additional content on the iPod unless I found a piece particularly interesting or wanted to learn more about the designer. I missed a lot of fascinating content, I’m sure, but it lead to a satisfying experience and better integration than trying to get through all of the in-the-room or on-the-device information. I could watch multiple 10 minute videos without spending more than 2 hours at the museum, including the upstairs exhibition.
I strongly agree with your point that I would love to see the open material available via email or even on the museum’s website. But I also found the statistics that were sent to my email address about my visit telling in terms of what type of content I gravitated towards.
Again, thank you for writing such a thoughtful piece. I enjoyed reading it and think Cooper Hewitt’s experiment merits continued discussion among the museum and digital communities.
Regards,
Morgan.

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Koven

Koven — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:00:15 +0000

Sarah,

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a camera with me to the show, so I don’t have any screenshots. I might go back to see the show again in the next couple of weeks; I might try to add some photos then. And in reply to others who asked, no, I don’t believe this is available in the App store. It’s too bad, because it would work rather well as a stand-alone app–it’s self-contained enough that you don’t really need to be in the gallery to use it. It’s kind of strange that most of the functionality from the application isn’t mirrored on the exhibition Web site; it would be rather useful there.

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Maria

Maria — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:12:59 +0000

Thanks for sharing your impressions! The NYT review had a number of our curators abuzz and your description & thoughts are v informative. I shall point colleagues to your post.

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Sandy Goldberg

Sandy Goldberg — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:04:37 +0000

Hi Koven,

Thanks so much for this; very insightful. Of course it was great to see Roberta Smith actually covering interpretation in her review of the show – and frustrating that the designers and the museum went for the ‘more-is-better’ approach, which we know doesn’t enhance an on-site experience. Using existing content is often great. I’ve used youtube videos and the like in some of my projects for museums – but they’ve got to be really honed, tightly edited, etc to make the on-site experience more, not less, resonant.

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Duffau

Duffau — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:18:23 +0000

Hi,
very interesting review indeed. It gives a very good idea of what is available.
Do you know if the application be available in the App Store?
Regards,
Gilles

Comment on The iPod tour at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Sarah Dines

Sarah Dines — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:42:16 +0000

Hi Koven,
Thanks for your review. After reading the Times review I was really encouraged by the potential fabulous-ness and step-forward-in-the-right-direction-ness of the application.

Great point on integrating existing, free, out there material into in-gallery interpretation. I wish (and expect) more museums would (will) do this, and that providers would try harder to drive museums to do this – hopefully yours will!

Also very disappointing that the experiences don’t seem to need each other (in-gallery interpretation 101) and irksome as I would very much like to see the exhibition app but cannot seem find it in the app store, and will not be in New York for a couple of months. I mean, if you don’t need to be there, why not make it available to all?

Did you take any screen shots of the application? Would love to see them here.

Cheers,
Sarah

Comment on The Semantic Web in Practice, Part One – Museum Computer Network 2009 Conference – 11/13/09 by You say it’s Semantics « Dan Cull Weblog

You say it’s Semantics « Dan Cull Weblog — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:09:46 +0000

[...] a two part series about the semantic web, entitled “The Semantic Web in Practice” Part One and Part Two, these were presented at the Museum Computer Network 2009 Conference. The previous [...]