1. Social/mobile applications on the
wireless campus
Kristof Michiels – IBBT-SMIT – iLab.o – Vrije universiteit Brussel

2. Agenda
2
• The Wireless Campus and its applications
• Aspects of mobile computing
• Social computing and cultural institutions
• If time left: case of Brooklyn Museum (NY)

3. The Wireless Campus
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• Mission:
 a permanent test- and demozone
 active partnership with industry, government, young
developers & entrepreneurs
 platform for scientific research and education
• Focus on mobile (city) services & applications
• Offer living lab environment with 10.000 users
• Urbizone as catalyst

4. Experiments
4
• Build, test & evaluate mobile services
• Different application domains
– Sport & leisure
– Education / R&D
– Culture
– Work/productivity
– Social networks

5. Currently under development
5
 Sport & leisure:
• MIND THE STEP
Motivational, sustained physical activity
monitor.
 Culture:
• MOBILE MUSEUM GUIDE
creating personalised musea experiences
through mobile devices.
 Community support:
• MOBILEIZER (OYBLE)
Multimodal group communication hub
 Work:
• QuTi
Real time monitor for queue sensitive
events
• TWINIC
Online knowledge sharing platform
• WAYFINDING 2.0
Sensor-based navigation for public spaces
• RADIATION MONITOR
Compound radiation measurements for
public safety

6. AirGraffiti
 - Context aware urban mobile service
 - Provides a highly personalized city
experience, tailored to specific interests,
expectations and situation
 - Allows for dynamic in- & outdoor trails
 - Uses GPS, QR-codes, RFID-tags
 - Use cases: city trajectories, museum
guides, mobile quests, urban story telling
 - Today: Poster + limited demo on req

7. Mobileizer (Oyble)
 - Multimodal group communication hub
 - A platform that allows any group to stay
connected through a computer and/or a
mobile phone
 - Uses SMS, e-mail, the web, an API and
screen scraping
 - Embeddable widget allows subscription on
every web site
 - Use cases: Student bodies organizing
activities, Teachers sending students last-
minute notices, communities keeping each
other up to date
 - Today: Poster + demo at the boot

8. Wayfinding 2.0
 - Sensor-based navigation experiment on
the campus
 - Uses active nodes on the campus:
displays + RFID readers attached.
 - Users navigate the campus with a
passive RFID tag
 - Each node provides a visual queue &
info on how to get to the next node
 - Dynamic trails with minimal
configuration. Use cases: future events on
the campus
 - Today: Poster (currently in early
development)

9. Mind The Step
 Community website for stimulating a healthy
lifestyle.
 Diet is monitored through simple
questionnaires.
 Physical activity is automatically monitored
through a smart sensor.
 Will the community aspect improve
compliance?
 We are targeting large employers to launch a
competition among different departments.
 Today: Poster + sensor demo

10. Air Graffiti

11. Internet of Things?

12. Will change way we interact with physical world

13. AirGraffiti
 Context aware urban mobile service
 An engine for the Internet of Things
 People can describe and experience physical objects,
places and events
 Users can create clusters of objects. Smart-context
engine helps in the process
 Allows for dynamic in- & outdoor trails
Native iPhone app coming soon!

14. AirGraffiti
 Mission: To provide a highly personalized city
experience, tailored to an individual’s interests,
expectations and situation
 Use cases: museum guides, city trajectories, mobile
quests, urban story telling
Native iPhone app coming soon!

15. The importance of the mobile and the social?
15
Overgang nieuws als product van een gevestigd instituu
naar nieuws als onderdeel van een communicatie-ecosysteem dat bestaat
uit officiële kanalen, informele collectieven en individuen

16. Mobile Devices market / iPhone: take-off yet?
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 Apple (March 2009) has sold 30 million devices
 17 million iPhones
 13 million iPod touch
 App Store (exists for 8 months now)
 25000 applications
 800 million apps downloaded
 But: heterogenous market, mobile broadband expensive,
slows uptake

17. De gebruiker
• Gebruik? DS – 3 nov 2008: Insites
• 2,2 miljoen Belgen maken gebruik
van een sociaal netwerk
• = 40% van surfende volwassen
bevolking
• Ter vgl. GB: 2 op 3
• 1. Facebook (1/3)
• 2. LinkedIn (1/4)
• 3. Netlog (1/7)
• 4. MySpace (1/10)

18. Facebook in Belgium (march 2009)
18

19. 2009: social networks
C. Shirky, Here comes everybody,
2008

20. Relevance for (e-)culture?
 Networked society is
becoming a reality...
 Part of mission: ‘providing
access to culture’ -> digitally
 Culture is being created in
new (digital) places
 New (digital) actors emerge,
old ones disappear
DUCHAMP: “creative act is not performed by an artists
alone. The spectator brings the work in contact with the
external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner
qualifications and thus contributes to the creative act.”

21. BANKSY: “A small group create, promote, purchase,
exhibit and decide the succes of Art. Only a few hundred
people in the world have any real say. When you go to an
Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy
cabinet of a few millionaires.” (Banksy.co.uk)

22. 2009: cultural institutions on social networks?
Tate Britain, Science Museum on Facebook / National Gallery on
YouTube

23. 2009: era of museums on social networks
Museums on
http://twitter.com

24. 2009: era of museums on social networks
Museums on
http://twitter.com

25. 2009: era of museums on social networks
Museums on
http://twitter.com

26. Damien Hirst @ Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
http://fortheloveofgod.nl : real participation?

27. Not content but CONTACT is king?
 “Main point of content is to offer people the
opportunity to socialize. Content is an excuse for
people to interact.” (Douglas Rushkoff)
 “Main threat for traditional publishers is Facebook
not Google” (Stephen Abram)

28. From gatekeeper to curator and guide
 Exploit core competences and assets to the max
 Cherish and play expert role
 Select: CURATOR
 Structure, combine and explain: GUIDE
 Play HUB-role -> ‘community discovery’
 Collaborate with other organisations and actors

29. Institution as (virtual) social meeting space
 Enabler for dialogue between:
 Audience
 Staff
 Artists
 Let the audience be a co-guide
 No strict division between real-virtual participation,
mobile or fixed. All are complementary

30. Brooklyn Museum
http://brooklynmuseum.org

31. bloggers@brooklynmuseum
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/blogge

32. 1stfans: a socially networked museum membership
“Twitter being used as a conceptual art space

33. Brooklyn Museum Collection API

34. Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition

35. ArtShare

36. Wikipedia loves art / Brooklyn Museum

37. Concluding…
 mobile/social/ict in the first place an
instrument
 A very important instrument! Museums
must learn how to use it wisely
 Instrument IS NOT goal
 Think about your mission, use new
media to reach these goals
 Not expensive per se, but it takes time!
 Important to distinguish between:
 instrument for communication
 instrument for participation – does
that really happen?

38. Thank you!
 Questions?
 Get in touch: kristof.michiels@ibbt.be
 Web: http://www.ibbt.be and http://smit.vub.ac.be
 Soon: http://edosia.org / http://oyble.be