God help me because I can’t understand this WEB 2.0 gibberish! Oh wait Wayne MacPhail to the rescue. Problem solved. Wayne MacPhail is a producer of content more specifically online content. I didn’t actually get what his actual title was but you could say he’s on the good side of mankind. Social media was today’s topic which spilled over into concepts like tagging, bookmarking, RSS, and embedded code.
Whenever you think of something and a word jumps out let’s say bumble bee, you think yellow and black, fuzzy, stinger those words alone are tags which help identify itself. Bookmarking or social bookmarking as Wayne likes to put it and RSS allows a collective (you and I) to share information sort of like an Inbox for the web. Finally embedded code is quite simply the code equivalent to fast food. You pick it up and use it however you please but you can’t really have code fights unless you print them off and start throwing it at people. Think of all those paper cuts. Ouch!
Before I go completely off topic Wayne emphasized the importance of online social rules the key ones being awareness, education and involvement. Examples of this would be that users shouldn’t use social communities just to make a quick buck but to participate and help it grow. Another good one was that social media is a conversation and not a broadcast. You mainly want people interacting almost on the verge of personal involvement rather than being shot a clever marketing campaign claiming to be “with the times”.
The whole take away from Wayne was that real content is first created by the user and shared among friends and then it spreads like wild fire. Here are some links to get the revolution started:
http://www.mogulus.com/ (so cool I tried it myself)
http://www.facebook.com/ (horribly satisfying)
http://www.utterz.com/ (mobile future???)
http://www.flickr.com/ (for all you photo prostitutesJ)
http://wordpress.org/ (how could I not include this)
So on February 8th New Media Director, Brain Porter, took our class through many exhibitions, upcoming attractions, and gave us a brief history of how the ROM is utilizing technology to engage its visitors. The first point of interest was the digital gallery where we had a chance to view ancient artifacts through a touch screen. The concept makes total sense when you want to preserve these historic items while having the ability to have infinite number interactions with the audience but it does take away from the total experience of being in the presence of the actual artifact, nonetheless quite impressive. Brian then discussed the obstacles and achievements that the ROM had integrating a digital feel and value to visiting the ROM.
What I found interesting about the ROM, made possible through Brain’s walk through was that the ROM itself is quite large in what it contains, far beyond (5million items if I remember correctly) what I expected but also it has multiple projects running but requires massive funding from the government and the public. It makes you really appreciate the value of having the ROM in the first place otherwise people would just assume it will always be there. Choosing this institution as a charity and donating money towards it would really make a difference now the only dilemma for me would be to pick this over my favorite jazz station (91.1 Jazz FM) as the recipient. Tough call.
We then moved onto the Dinosaurs exhibit where touch screens were used again but with audio to boot, nice. I had an enjoyable time walking around the exhibit and taking a few pictures of the fossils. Being inside the new part of the ROM , the Lee-Chin Crystal was very satisfying partly because I’ve spent a couple of hours before its launch on Bloor street in bumper to bumper traffic due to construction.
All in all the tour was refreshing and humbling which all Ontarians should at least experience once.
