Smithsonian Affiliates 14 June 2011

Recruiting the World
a practical approach to the
Red Ink Business
of Mobile for Museums
Nancy Proctor, Smithsonian Institution
14 June 2011

Housekeeping
Ways of staying in touch:
ProctorN@si.edu@nancyproctor
Hashtags: #mtogo #SImobile
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Mobile
Unanswered questions? http://wiki.museummobile.info/museums-to-go/mobile-faqs

Is mobile a fad?

Apps don't generate profit for publishers.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said, the App Store has generated more than $1 billion in revenue for developers. That sounds like a big number. But… One billion dollars in revenue for the approximately 225,000 apps is $4,444 per app--significantly less than an app costs to develop. …A typical iPhone app costs $35,000 to develop. The median paid app earns $682 per year after Apple takes its cut. With these calculations for the typical paid app, it takes 51 years to break even. It's not any better for free apps. A free app also costs about $35,000 to develop. But there are so many free iPhone apps that at a rate of 2 second per app, it would take approximately 34 hours for someone to check out each one. That's not great odds for a revenue model based on advertising.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1684020/the-great-app-bubble

Mobile includes both:
Pocketable(phones, iPods, gaming devices)
Smartphones(apps and mobile web)
Podcasts(video and audio)
BYOD(bring your own device)
Mobile web sites
Portable(tablets and eReaders)
‘Dumb’ phones(voice calls and txting)
otherdownloadable content (PDFs, eBooks)
mobile devices provided on-site by SI museums
Large-screen websites on mobile devices

The Costs of Mobile
Platform
Rev shares: 30% to Apple, n% to platform provider
Interface design
Development (app/mobile website)
Software: CMS, statistics, distribution
For-fee services (or staff time)
SaaS
Players, charging racks, headsets, lanyards
Software: statistics, distribution
Operations staff
Opensource platform
Minutes
Text messages
On-site infrastructure
Project management & staff time
Content, include licensing of assets
Marketing
+ Free Marketing (off-site)
+ MAINTENANCE

Common Mobile Business Models
http://conference.archimuse.com/mw2011/papers/getting_on_not_under_the_mobile_20_bus

Freemium: National Constitution Center
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/national-constitution-center/id399722048?mt=8

Subscription: Museum Magazines…& more??
Your magazine or catalogue here??

Open Data:
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2009/04/17/brooklyn-museum-api-the-iphone-app
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2010/12/01/app-store-confusion-necessitates-api-changes

Ad-supported

Donations
http://mobilegiving.org/?page_id=48

Red Ink Businesses
Invaluable collections = highest possible quality
Public good = relevant, accessible &accountable
‘Forever business’ = must be sustainable
Max Anderson, Prescriptions for Art Museums in the Decade Ahead,
CURATOR, The Museum Journal, Volume 50, Number 1 January 2007

Museum Mobile Business Strategy
Principles:
Profitshould not be the imperative;
Mobile should instead aim at network effects in support of mission goals, existing revenue streams and priority initiatives;
And transforming the way we do business, to make it more effective, efficient, open and accountable to stakeholders.

A crazy idea?
“A Wikipedia of the Physical World”
http://smithsonian20.si.edu/schedule_webcast2.html

Wikipedia
…78 million visitors monthly as of January 2010. There are more than 91,000 active contributors working on more than 17,000,000 articles in more than 270 languages.
That means the average contributor works on ~186 articles?!

Meaningful Workers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/4294119350/

SI Mobile’s Vision
Recruit the world
to increase and diffuse knowledge
by using mobile platforms to enlist collaborators globally in undertaking the real and important workof the Institution.
Put the Smithsonian not just in the people’s pockets,
but in their hands.

The People’s Institution
James Smithson:
“for the increase
and diffusion of
knowledge”
Louise RochonHoover,"Secretary Henry Posts DailyWeather Map in Smithsonian Building, 1858.”
The Megatherium Club, a group of young naturalists who collected for the Smithsonian in the 19th C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatherium_Club

The Multiplatform Museum

More than multiplatform…

The Museum is a Distributed Network
Edward Hoover, 2010, from Flickr.

Chandra Xray Observatory

Design USA at Cooper-Hewitt
“Don’t even think about not using it because then you won’t truly see the show.”
Roberta Smith, NY Times,
14 Jan 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/arts/design/15design.html
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Design+USA+iPod+Touch+tour

Set in Style iPad App
Cooper-Hewitt
National Design Museum

MEanderthal
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/MEanderthal

NMNH Leafsnap

NASM “Got a Question?” Txt Test
one week
84 unique users
88 responses
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/NASMmobile_gotaquestion

ARGs: GOAC, PHEON, PDP

mLearning Workshops

Mobile Learning at the Hirshhorn

Work in Progress…
35

Non-profit Network Effects
Quality of the overall visitor experience
Volunteer recruitment & crowdsourcing
Community development
Institutional collaborations, e.g. content sharing
Membership & member benefits
Donations
Ticket & product sales
Monetizing user data: enhanced sponsorship value
Edward Hoover, 2010, from Flickr.

Smithsonian Affiliates 14 June 2011

by nancyproctor

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Smithsonian Affiliates 14 June 2011 Presentation Transcript