At the recent Museums & the Web Conference, Perian and I decided that we needed some more regular content here at Musematic.
Earlier this year Nina Simon at Museum 2.0 initiated “Game Friday.” Each week she’s provided thoughtful commentary on her work as an interactive designer and the potential for games in museums.
With Musuems & the Web and our recent paper “A Second Life for Your Museum” behind us, I thought some regular updates about developments of Multi-user virtual environments was needed and would be a nice compliment to Nina’s GF.
I received alot of questions while at Museums & the Web and many of them revolved around whether any of us should bother with Second Life and whether it was simply another passing fad. I am often amused by these questions because they are the same ones that were posed to me in the mid-90s when I was introducing the Web into my museum work.
At the rate things are going most of our online technologies will continue to go through major shifts in the next few years. Second Life is certainly a new technology and still in its infancy. Whether it has any staying power remains to be seen. Like any new technology a museum should carefully balance its needs with the potential risks of adoption. In Mike Ellis’ MW presentation he introduced us the Gartner hype curve. (and see this related discussion about where SL sits on the curve). Second Life may not continue to build the buzz that’s developed over the last year, but the trend suggests growing capabilities to engage visitors through multi-user virtual environments. Mike’s suggestions about ‘avoiding the chasm” and “avoiding the trough” apply equally well to Second Life as to any other web 2.0 technologies.
One of the ways we can get our virtual toes wet is through collaboration and sharing of resources. Success can breed further success and that’s been amply demonstrated by the New Media Consortium and the librarians on Information Island. Both have seen tremendous growth during the last six months. There have been key players in making it happen, but the result is an space where newcomers can experiment and grow in Second Life. I’d argue that someone needs to step up and provide a similar model for museums. The Exploratorium is already taking a lead by building one of the first museum islands in Second Life and by creating a place for us to learn about Second Life and other virtual worlds (see also their related workshop paper).
I’d issue the challenge of whether Second Life is any more or less stable than the Flash and other proprietary technology (and yes, SL is also proprietary) that museums have been using to build their interactives over the last few years. Brewster Kahle warned us about the digital dark ages, which the Internet Archive has mitigated to some extent. When it comes to museum interactives I think the darkness will be deep and black. (Brewster! let’s start an archive of old, outdated museum games and interactive technologies!!! Museums! Send your old interactives in! ). I don’t see that SL would be any more or less risky than using those technologies if it were based on many of the good principles of digitization that we’ve already spelled out. The advantage of course is getting content to where there is an enthusiastic audience.
A possible alternative is to throw our weight in behind a more open and standards-based approach to 3D environments. The Metaverse Roadmap Project is an organization that intends to do just that. While it has representatives from academia, industry, and even the American Cancer Society there does not appear to any represetnation from the cultural heritage/museum community. There is a place for public participation and a roadmap wiki. We often complain that the standards that are generally adopted do not fit the needs of our community, perhaps this is an opportunity where we can raise awareness about our needs.
Perian and I will be switching off every week to bring you a view into various worlds, occasionally commenting on Nina’s comments, and we may rope some other folks into participating as well.
I leave you with a brief tour of the Second Louvre Museum as a little food for thought:
p.s. if you didn’t understand the title
