Digital Musical Instruments

http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/musical-instrument-apps-elicit-skepticism-enthusiasm-alike-1269951.html

Article on another app that allows you to play digital instruments (violin, guitar) and share the music that you create. The article tells two views (pros and cons) of this app. I agree that you can make sound out of anything and call it an instrument, but when you use a tablet or iPad, it deletes the appreciation of the craftsmanship of the real instrument. The technology sounds great, but I don't know how far it will get in the realm of professional orchestras or performance groups.

Art Fairs and iPhones

http://www.nypress.com/blog-8361-apps-for-art-fairs-during-armory-arts-week-2011.html

I found an article introducing how digital technology is being incorporated at art fairs using a new iPhone app (the Collectrium mobile app) that allows visitors to access information about art at fairs during Armory Week. The app also allows the visitors to share and tweet their findings.

It looks like the arts may be influencing more people to buy an iPhone. It would be interesting to have an organization who used this technology to survey the amount of people who bought an iPhone just to use this particular app. This would probably provide some interesting data...

Economic Growth Through Art

I found an interesting article recently, Texas study stresses economic progress through art:

http://smmercury.com/archives/17568

This article is about how towns in Texas are finding economic growth through the reinvigoration of the arts. One interesting point that the article repeats through out is how the state of Texas does not do very much to support the arts. Texas is ranked 46th in state funding for the arts. Despite this statistic the Texas Commission on the Arts took a look at five arts-driven economies and how their economies have been stimulated by a growth in their arts community. It sounds like Texas has a long way to go to rebuild their arts communities, but the good news is it is working, despite the lack of state funding.

Instant Encore: Classical Music Goes Mobile

InstantEncore.com is a classical music platform that enables artists and arts organization to harness the power of technology to connect with their fans anywhere, any time. It is the only classical music-specific digital asset management system that essentially allows Partners from a broad spectrum of the performing arts world to enter digital content – event listings, ticket selling, audio recordings (streaming, download, public or private), video (live or on-demand), news, blogs, and photos – one time, and have all of their content published in real time to their own website, mobile apps, Facebook or Twitter accounts.

http://www.technologyinthearts.org/?p=1737

Girls Are More Likely to Support Charities Using Social Media

http://philanthropy.com/blogs/social-philanthropy/girls-are-more-likely-to-support-charities-using-social-media/28012

Study shows that teen girls are more likely than their male counterparts to support/contribute to organizations via Facebook and Twitter than their male counterparts. Could be very valuable if you are an organization looking to increase it's web presence but have a target audience that skews strongly male or female.

T.White

Moving From a Paper to a Digital Annual Report

http://philanthropy.com/article/How-to-Move-From-Paper-to/126407/?sid=&utm_source=&utm_medium=en

"The Salvation Army discovered a few years ago that nobody opened about half the 28,800 printed annual reports it sent to its 7,000 field offices every year. So it decided to scrap the hard-copy version, moving to an all-digital one in 2009. The charity, with headquarters in Alexandria, Va., now produces a paperless annual report, including video features on its programs nationwide, an interactive financial and statistical section, and a video message from the group’s leader. The videos do triple duty: They are also used in television spots and community presentations. Four national TV spots the charity broadcast during the 2010 holiday season were first shot as clips for the online annual report."

Discusses how organizations can save money and actually get people to pay attention to the valuable information found in annual reports by switching to digital formats including video clips, animations, and mobile versions. Cautions that older and more traditional donors may not be receptive to this new technology, and gives tips on how to gradually transition into a new format rather than just changing drastically one year.

T.White

Five reasons for digital divide

Here are 5 interesting reasons why there is a growing divide between race, gender, demographics in the digital world.

http://www.artsjournal.com/rwx/2011/02/five-links-looking-at-the-digital-divide/

Museums & Visitor Engagement

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is going digital, a common trend common among major (and minor) museums both nationally and internationally. Creating phone and web apps for its exhibits and wiring its massive building for Wi-fi are just the beginning of the museum’s venture into the field of visitor engagement.

Although a sizable number of patrons flock to large museums like the MET each year, these institutions have long been characterized as elite cultural gathering places. Increasing visitor engagement through the use of everyday technology such as cell phones and tablet computers will make art and culture accessible to a wider audience base while appealing to a younger, digital generation.

One of a museum’s core responsibilities is to accommodate the public, attracting and serving the broadest audience possible. In the past it was not feasible for a museum to target all audience segments with the same institutional programming. However, with the use of technological-based visitor engagement, museums have the ability to easily target and direct programs to serve all audience segments from the first-time visitor to the scholar. After all, the role of a museum is really to serve the public and protect the artworks in the public trust, right?

The most significant difficulty museums will face [besides resistance from luddites] will be working to find a balance between the new technology it implements and maintaining the high standards of its establishment. The technology a museum implements should be used to enhance the museum experience for all audiences and increase visitor engagement; technology should not completely alter the museum experience in the same way that the internet transformed the world overnight.

Increasing visitor engagement through technology is an excellent tool that every museum, cultural institution, and arts organization should take advantage of in some way—but don’t go techno crazy. Technology should not be allowed to change the foundation of an institution. Embracing technology is embracing the future, but just like everything else, it should be used in moderation.

Also check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/arts/design/12campbell.html?_r=1&ref=design

iPad 2

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/02/22/ipad2.wsj.rumor/index.html?hpt=Sbin

With so many different organizations utilizing Mac products, I wonder how long it will take for them to fully integrate this technology into the art itself. I know that there have been art exhibitions with iPads in New York, but I wonder how this new technology will shape the way that people interact with art. Will they become more or less involved with the art itself. By putting a screen between a person and a work of art, does the viewer lose some intrinsic value that is held by a viewer sans iPad?

the digital divide

Jean Cook presents a variety of links discussing the types of the digital divide. She identifies some of types of divide as global the accessability of technology and the web in first and third world countries, The national divide is the accessability of technology in households of lower incomes versus middle and upper class homes. The broadband divide is speed of access with the uses of the web for business or entertainment, home computers and mobile hand held devices such as cell phones. The cultural divide is social networking and the use of the web of likes attracting likes. As arts managers we must recognize the digital divides that exist and find ways to overcome those that affect the specific area.
Reference www.artsjournal.com/rmx/2011/five-links-looking-at-the-digital-divide/

Technology Trivia and Man

On Jeopardy the week night trivia game show, IBM supercomputer Watson challenged real life winners Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson is an an example of artificial intelligence that took 4 years to build. Even though Brad tied Watson on night one of the three night challenge, Watson was the three night winner. His winnings were donated to charity. This was an interesting example of computer technology, television and human competion.
Reference www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/02/15/watson_jeopardy_man_vs_machine/index.html

More Art Often with Less Work

As of January 2011 the Audience Engagement Platform began offering a menu of programs for artists to better connect with their communities; interestingly the core of these services is media based. Audiences will be able to engage with the artists through a variety of social and communication media, such as skype, facebook--the services will be mediated by AEP. What I find interesting is the potential for artists to save booking costs but at the same time, I wonder how the integrity of the artistic experience will be compromised. My biggest question is whether the computer will serve to alienate rather than integrate the audience with the performance, although the experience is more readily available and accessible.

http://www.aeplatform.org/aep-audiencebook-plan/2010/11/

A New Spin on 3-D

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/arts/music/16siegfried.html?_r=1

An interesting article on a new approach to technology to enhance for viewing experience for live audiences by providing the 3D feel without the frames. The first test will be with The Met's production of "Siegfried". It looks like this technology could be the next big thing- especially for the arts.

How Much Art Is Too Much?

I recently read this article, NEA chairman provokes heated debate: How much art is too much?, by Peter Marks of the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021105534_pf.html

In this article the chairman of the NEA, Rocco Landesman, asks the question: Does the country have more outlets for the arts than it can handle?

I find this to be fascinating. First of all it is not an issue that I had even thought of before. Can there really be too many theaters, art galleries, dance companies, symphonies, etc? You always hear about how arts programs are being cut down severely or completely eliminated when it comes to public funding in our schools. So it only seemed natural that the private sector would step up to the plate to bridge the gap. And in these times of recession with lowered donor and grant support and lower ticket sales, you would think that organizations that are not doing well would come to a rather natural ending without outside help asking for them to just close up shop. If a struggling arts organization is able to stay afloat through whatever means, is it right of us to say, "Look your on life support, it's time for you to go into the light and stop taking funding and ticket sales away from healthier organizations." Surely if they are able to stay afloat there is a real desire out there in the community for them to stick around a while longer.

Is our only choice really to "decrease supply" as suggested by Mr. Landesman. He suggests that it is not possible to increase demand. Yet if these arts organizations are able to keep the engine going, doesn't that indicate that there already is a very real demand for these lesser organizations? Why can't they build on their foundations and increase demand?

Arts Organizations Using Technology to Sustain the Arts

Yaa Samar Dance Theater is making the most of technology. With the director living in Palestine and the dancers living in the US, the dance company sustains its programming through the use of various communication media such as skype, and vimeo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-edwards/life-love-technology-and-_b_820967.html

Small Schange: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted

This past October, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and What the Dog Saw, wrote an article for the New Yorker. This article argued that with the overwhelming amount of unnecessary and irrelevant tweets and statuses about what we're having for lunch or who we're currently dating, the likelihood of and major movement being started and propelled by social media is slim-t0-none. I'd like to remind you that this was written in October, well before the current events in Tunisia and Egypt. Here's the link:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell

This article fired-up a lot of non-profit managers who are currently trying to integrate social media into their fundraising, marketing and volunteer efforts. Here are two such responses:

http://www.theagitator.net/communications/revolution-wont-be-tweeted/

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=137076

Enjoy!

Wikipedia your arts organization...?

In the academic world Wikipedia has achieved a less than shining reputation as being an unreliable source. But the reasons for the bad rep in the academic sphere and why it makes such a practical tool to an arts organization are one in the same—anyone can edit it and everybody’s using it!

If you have ever searched for something in Google, chances are Wikipedia has appeared in your search results. Put simply, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia about a huge variety of topics, virtually an entry about anything can be made.

Creating an entry about your arts organization, event, production, exhibition, etc. on Wikipedia will make your organization’s search results more relevant in addition to making more information about your organization more easily accessible. The downside is in the management and upkeep. Who is doing the editing the entry? Could someone be adding false or misleading information to your Wikipedia entry? Is there a way to lock your entry to keep out unwanted edits? This will take some research and maintenance on behalf of your organization, but will put your organization ahead in terms of visibility and keeping current with the technology and media of today.

http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2011/01/want-to-get-your-content-out-there-put.html

Tumblr Is Headed For The Creative Community, Should Arts Organizations Follow?

Tumblr has grown significantly since its launch in 2007. The site is beginning to have a similar feel to the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It is going to focus on developing social communities on the site. In this article the author discusses a few of the features of Tumblr that it has to make it feel more like a social media site.

“You look in fashion, creative writing, photography, music, so many of these creative circles,” said Karp, “and we have these really substantial communities that now live on Tumblr.”

http://www.technologyinthearts.org/?p=1695

What Non Profits can learn from Groupon Fumble

http://philanthropy.com/blogs/giveandtake/guest-post-groupons-super-bowl-fumble-gives-nonprofits-a-chance-to-score-big/27719?sid=&utm_source=&utm_medium=en

Discusses how non profits can benefit from the group-buying websites.

(T.White)

Free Samples

http://www.artsjournal.com/lifesapitch/2011/02/free-samples.html

Discusses how opera companies allow patrons to preview an opera via mini video clips online prior to purchasing a ticket.

(T. White)

Fundly Sponsors Webinar for NonProfits and Social Media

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=281775&sessionid=1&key=45C75D8FDD423F2C578648A5361BB3A9&partnerref=PTFeb9&sourcepage=register

Has your organization been looking for ways to reach more potential supporters through social networks?

Are you searching for ways to sharpen your organization’s efforts to build meaningful, interactive efforts throughout all your communications?

Do you wonder if small organizations can go toe-to-toe with the nation’s biggest nonprofits to get attention?

If so, you are not alone, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a quick way for you to get up to speed on all the smartest ways to achieve your goals.

We have found the best experts in the nonprofit world to share their insights with you and because this topic is so important we have lowered our registration fee to make it possible for you and others in your organization to participate.

Plan to join us on February 24 at 2 pm Eastern time to learn how a young nonprofit became a household name in part by building an impressive following on Facebook and Twitter and how a small social-service charity used a creative approach to help it build an outsized presence on social networks. In addition to our special guests, you can count on one of The Chronicle’s top reporters to provide you with a national overview of what soars and what sinks for nonprofits of all sizes and missions.

Here are the takeaways you’ll get in this Webinar:

• How to mobilize advocates for your cause, online and offline, and how to increase your pool of supporters 
• Steps you can take to better integrate fund raising, public relations, advocacy and social media to enable your organization to achieve its top goals 
• Tips on how to deliver messages in an authentic voice – and how best to navigate the chaos of today’s cluttered communications landscape 
• Techniques that help ensure employees, volunteers, board members, and others will work together to shape and distribute engaging and consistent messages

(T. White)

SKYPE ballet classes

Mary Helen Bowers created Ballet Beautiful an online ballet class through skype. Ms Bowers targets muscles used specifically for ballet, specifically inner thigh and posterior thigh muscles. Classes can be private or group, 30 or 60 minutes, through a skype account. Cost is $40 for a 60 minute class. Ms Bowers trained Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" and is a former NYC Ballet dancer. Interesting way to take ballet out of the studio and into the home or isolated rural area.
Reference Arts Journal link to
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703833204576114361304121324.html

3D Meets Opera

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/carmen-to-be-taken-to-the-3d-stage-2209630.html

After the explosion of the Phantom of the Opera screenings in your local movie theaters across the country, arts organizations have decided to give into the, in my opinion, annoying fascination of 3D entertainment . Soon you will be able to view the famous opera 'Carmen' in 3D in theaters and later blu-ray discs.

I've never stopped to think if I wanted to see a stage play in 3D. The concept seems rather strange to me. When I think of 3D I think of Universal Studios and cartoons and kids, not a 100+ year-old opera trying to make records in the race for the best new use of technology in the arts. I would however be interested to see how well this idea turns out. Will you be there on opening night? Any thoughts?

Neat Ways I've Personally Experienced Tech in the Arts Recently

I went to go see Alvin Ailey perform at the Kennedy Center the evening of February 5th. I love this organization, and have been trying to see them for YEARS. Flipping through my program during one of the intermissions (there were two), I saw that after each piece, there were prompts to send a code via text to a number given to get a free (sans any data fees your carrier would charge you) text with links and more info about the history of the piece and the music being played, and how it fits into the Alvin Ailey repertoire. I thought that was pretty neat, since dance can sometimes seems obscure or difficult to understand unless you are a true enthusiast.

http://www.alvinailey.org/
Also, according to the Express paper today, the New York Philharmonic has started project that will put over 8 million pages of its archives (dating as far back as 1842) online over the course of several years. the first documents to go up were 300K pages from Leonard Bernstein. Included will be scores, programs, business records, and other historic documents. the process is being financed via a 2.4M grant from the Leon Levy Foundation.

This is a link to the press conference that was web cast discussing the project:
http://nyphil.org/concertsTicks/webcast.cfm?utm_medium=homepage&utm_source=button2_webcast_0207

(T.White)

Put on Your Dancing Shoes

I found this article about how ballet shoes are made:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/02/02/ballet.pointe.shoes/

While I have done a lot of dance in past musical theater productions, I have never put much thought into how the shoes were actually made. As a dancer my only concern was making sure the shoes stayed on my feet. (I once watched in horror while my shoe went sailing through the air into the unprepared audience after doing a choreographed kick into the air.) So the details of gluing and baking a ballet pointe shoe came as a bit of a surprise to me.

And the amount of money that a professional ballet comapany budgets for ballet shoes alone was astonishing! $400,000.00 a year is a considerable expense when you are budgeting your productions for the season. I thought being an actress was a money pit, but that was before I found out that ballerinas go through 6 pairs of pointe shoes a week. Wow!

Technology Adoption and Implementation in Arts Organizations

Technology in the Arts recently published the results of a survey regarding this topic to uncover emerging trends and the use of technology in the arts.

Here is a small sample of what they discovered.

• Over three-quarters of organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000 spent under $5000 on technology in the past year, while half of organizations with budgets of $5 million or more spent over $100,000.
• Nearly half of organizations with budgets between $2.5 million and $5 million have no full-time technology staff, and that figure jumps to 82% for organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000.
• Organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000 currently use static websites at a higher rate than dynamic websites, while all larger organizations are more likely to have already moved away from static websites.
• A large percentage of respondents, regardless of organizational budget size, did not respond with any specific technology plans for the next year–which may indicate an overall lack of planning for future technology.

Please see article for a full detailed report.
http://www.technologyinthearts.org/?p=1608

Audience Engagement Platform

The organization Audience Engagement Platform seeks to integrate audience members in the creative process of the performing arts. Although a great idea, I wonder what this means in terms of creative license: do we form new copyright laws since the creative process is so much more open-ended?

http://www.aeplatform.org/about/

The Technology Challenge - Michael Kaiser

We live in an age of astonishing invention. The new communication tools developed over the past 20 years are remarkable for their power and penetration. How many of us do not own an iPhone, iPad or BlackBerry or do not use websites, email blasts or social networking in our daily lives and in our organizations?

Why then, when we can communicate like never before, are arts organizations having an increasingly difficult time making a compelling case to potential audiences and donors? Why do sports and popular entertainment dominate our media and our minds like never before?
The Internet has provided us with astonishing tools that allow us to:

• Educate thousands upon thousands of potential audience members and donors at virtually no cost. We can provide information, videos and recordings with the push of a button. Our marketing materials used to be so static, now they can better reflect the work we do.

• Provide the information we need to sell our less well-known repertory. We could never afford to offer the information needed to see less accessible repertory using traditional marketing techniques; now it costs nothing to provide large amounts of information.

• Keep track of those who express any interest in our work. We can now capture the names of anyone who expresses interest in our work by visiting our website. This allows us to target our marketing efforts in ways that were formerly too expensive and cumbersome.

• Offer special deals to selected customers through targeted mailings. Providing discount opportunities, especially at the last minute, is easier than ever before.

• Provide opportunities for our constituents to stay in touch with us and provide feedback through social networking outlets. We can involve our constituents in easy and effective ways using Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

• Address the needs of constituents in rural areas who were heretofore too expensive to reach. It costs the same to reach a rural prospect as an urban one if they have Internet access.

• Lower the cost of programmatic marketing campaigns so we can sell more tickets and spend less on advertising and direct mail. By shifting marketing efforts to online activities from paid advertising, programmatic marketing cost--the cost of attracting ticket buyers--can be lowered substantially.

And yet, to most arts leaders I meet, new technologies are viewed as a threat. They are perceived as competitors for our audiences' time and attention rather than our biggest allies. Arts organizations have been slow to exploit the power of new technology and cling to older, more expensive techniques that are not as effective.

We are clearly doing something wrong. We must find ways to embrace the new technologies. We need to apply the creativity we bring to our stages and galleries to the use of these new tools.
The business world, entertainment industry and sports world are all doing so.

If we don't make a committed effort, we will fall hopelessly behind and the arts will lose their place in our society.

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/the-technology-challenge_b_816170.html

Google Brings Art From Famous Museums Onto Your Computer Screen

This article discussses Google's launch of a site where anyone can view famous paintings and other artifacts typically found within the confines of museums across the world in high-resolution on their computers. After reading this article, an important question to ask ourselves is whether the accessibility to these works of art on our personal computers lessens the EXPERIENCE one will now have in their presence. Everyone has different reasons for going to a museum, but typically we associate a museum experience with an individual quietly reflecting on the art and forming opinions internally. Yes, Google is bringing art to those people who may not have the opportunity to travel, for instance, to experience it---but at what cost to the value and experience we associate with that art? Is Google technology going too far?

Web Gives Rare Peek Into Arabian Theatre

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/jan/31/theatre-windows-world-gulf-stage

Article discusses how smaller companies in the tought London theatre scene gain exposure to a wider audience by placing performances on Youtube and other web portals, and are beginning to allow people to download performances for cash flow.

(T. White)

"Bootlegged and Live Streamed"

http://www.2amtheatre.com/2011/01/17/2amt-bootlegged-and-live-streamed/

This is an interesting story of an organization using the internet to stream live performances of one-night-only rehearsed plays, which originally started to compliment the overflow of people who were unable to get tickets to the hit show. Using Arena Stage's #NewPlayTV channel, the plan is to unite different organizations while exposing new works and new companies to greater audiences via the internet.

Good or Bad: Using Social Media as an Outlet for Fundraising

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/20charity.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

I found this article on the Fractured Atlas blog, which raises the concerns of using social media to increase/ or create exposure for online giving for non-profits. The article gives pros and cons (mostly cons in my opinion) of the venture- mainly due to the ridiculous fees these sites charge to give. However, this article raises a very serious issue about the role/relevancy of non-profits today: are we allowing social media to steal our audiences? What do non-profits need to do to draw their audiences in to donate using their own methods? How can we bring the audience to our front doors?

Paying for Art and Culture on the Web

http://themuseumofthefuture.com/2011/01/05/are-people-willing-to-pay-for-art-and-culture-online/#more-425

In a January 5 posting on The Museum of the Future entitled, “Are people willing to pay for Art and Culture Online,” Jasper Visser discusses common motivations people have for paying to access art and culture on the web and the likelihood of audiences to pay for things such as online music.

With the booming popularity of online music, movies and television, it’s clear that people are willing to pay for access to certain forms of culture on the internet. In applying this to nonprofit art organizations the question isn’t, are people willing to pay for art and culture online, but rather, is there enough of an audience to make an online endeavor worthwhile to an organization’s bottom line (whatever that bottom line may be for the venture). As the internet, social media and technology expand, they manipulate the way we receive information forcing the art and culture spheres to adapt. More aspects of our lives are being handled online and people are more trusting of the internet. Ecommerce is common and widespread with companies making the process as simple as a few clicks.

Will the public pay to attend a concert or show online because they cannot attend in person? Will someone pay to download a guided virtual tour of a gallery or museum?The answer is yes, because the public is growing more comfortable doing so and access is so easy. However, online art and culture won’t sell if goods and services are outrageously priced or if it’s something the buyer already readily has access to.Today’s audience is much more sophisticated than they were just last year, they want bigger, better and flashier and expect online art and culture of high quality.

If organizations begin charging fees for things that the public think should be free, it could cause a backlash. That is to say, mainstreaming the idea that you have to pay for once free forms of online art and culture might not be a simple or short process.

There will always be some segment of the public willing to pay for online access to art and culture, and that audience is only going to grow as the internet, ecommerce and technology simplify, innovate and expand. Arts organizations must always keep in mind that the audience must be large enough to make what its doing worthwhile, worth its effort and worth its time, otherwise its resources might be better spent spreading its mission in some other manner.

Local Art Gallery

In exploring the Visual Arts in Prince William County, on the web, I found an art gallery that I didn't know existed, the Loft Gallery located in Occoquan, VA. This gallery is an art cooperative with an adjacent studio. The website also lists the names of the artists in the coop. When I clicked on a name, I could find examples of their work, and what was available for purchase. They feature an artist for a month. They have a meet the artist hour, as well. The have a studio adjacent to the gallery that has classes. Technology at this web site allows the viewer to get an idea of the objects displayed before going to the gallery as well as background on the artists, and general information.
Reference www.loftgallery.org

Google Takes Street View into Art Museum

Amit Smood brings large museums into the homes of everyone. Sitting here at your computer, people are able to walk through the MET via googleartproject.com. Pretty great for those who can't make it to the cities, but are people not seeing the big picture of the experience of actually being there?!
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/google-takes-street-view-into-art-museums/?ref=technology