3 2 1 Fiamp Presentation

Presentation for FIAMP 2008

The Tech Virtual Museum,

Second Life, Oct. 16, 2008

3-2-1: Killing 3 Birds in Second Life with One Stone

Museums in a Virtual World - Are You Serious?

Is this:• A scientific experiment?• A commercial venture?• A joke?• Chasing a fad?

Why The Tech Museum is in Second Life

1. Access and interaction. Reaching visitors that can’t come to San José - e.g. hosting IMD ‘08, grotto of prehistoric rock art.

2. Rapid prototyping. Using SL’s 3-D tools to test exhibit concept, gallery designs.

3. Open source design. Teams of strangers compete to design exhibits. We choose the best and build them for the real museum.

Access and Interaction1

Second Life Visitors

• 115 visitors per day to The Tech Virtual

• 65% are returning visitors

• 15 million Second Life accounts

• 50,000 logged in at any one time

• 60% of SL users have built something

• $1.3M per day user-to-user transactions

Rapid Prototyping2

1 23

4

Open Source Exhibit Design3

Exhibit Creation Process

sketch museum floor

Virtual

thetechvirtual.org

Second Life

What Second Life Costs

whole island or “sim” $700 US

monthly rent $147.50 US

building depends

community 20 hrs/wk?

Who Pays

• Currently funded by a grant from Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation.

Economics of building one new interactive exhibit:

Traditional method 18 months $55,000 US

SL/Open Source 6 months $40,000 US

Links

• The Tech Virtual Website:– http://TheTechVirtual.org

• The Tech Virtual in Second Life: – The Tech and The Tech 2 Islands (slurl: http://tinyurl

.com/3x7bf7)– The Tech TG Island in Teen Second Life

• Contact Us: – Rob Stephenson, rstephenson@thetech.org– Bob Ketner, rketner@thetech.org