Adventures in Web 2.0

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It was easy finding the virtual talk around the web about Brooklyn Museum and their innovative social networking membership 1stfans. There is rich conversation to, from, and about Brooklyn Museum’s membership program on platforms all over the Internet. Mostly because they started it. Through developing a presence on Twitter and Facebook, posting content to sites like Flickr and Youtube, and creating the 1stfans blog and vodcast, they have started up a conversation with their community that has sprawled out into an ongoing web of discussion, creation, and feedback. Follow the links below to see how conversations have blossomed into interweaving, inspirational inter-connectivity.

A search for “1stfans” on Twitter brings up a mesh of museum-goer, museum-generated, and featured artists’ creative content, opinions, and conversations. Among the first of my discoveries was the web around 1stfans featured artist of the month of January 2009, An Xiao.  You can follow an interview by critic Hrag Vartanian with artist An Xiao, see links to reactionary photographs on flickr by Random Thoughts, a viewer who experienced the exhibit, read feedback from the interviewer Hrag to to Random Thoughts for their participation, see artist An Xiao thanking blogger
“! info:bubble. heavybubble makes me happy!” for writing about her work on his blog, where he posted the vodcast by Brooklyn Museum that was created by them and posted on their blog and on Youtube, where director Andrea Blythe gave the artist a complimentary comment.  Wow.  That was just some of the buzz around one artist.

Other exchanges are made over the 1stfans artist talk with Matt Held this month for Target First Saturdays , a free event hosted by the museum every first Saturday of the month, open to the entire community.  Great emphasis is made to connect the virtual social networking world of 1stfans with monthly face-to-face events where online friends can meet in person and stay connected on the web until the next event.  Friendships are made, bonds are strengthened, and people become more devoted to attending Brooklyn Museum events to engage with their community.  Fans thank Matt for his talk and the artist thanks them back.  One 1stfan member, azita99,  is bummed that she missed out on her first 1stfan meet, and posts a link to a 1stfan blog writeup from the event that made her long that she could attend even more.  She wasn’t even there and she is still sharing about it.  That’s the power of networking.

Searching the site for “1stfans” brings up tagged photographs of museum events taken by the museum and participants tagging their own photos.  Brooklyn Museum documents a tour of Matt Held’s studio posted to hype up his arrival.  Other photographs advertises a printing event that invited visitors to bring in found paper for Swoon Studio to screen print on for free, along with tons of pics from the event taken by happy campers holding up their souvenirs.  There were photos of the work and program by the Conservation Department on Animal Mummy Research taken by all, and other photos capturing experiences on a puruse through the rest of the museum.  The brand name 1stfans is easy to tag and share captured moments with others searching for content and conversation around the museum events.

The Brooklyn Museum photostream documents installations, events, interviews, studio visits, and gives expanations in captions about the event with tags for searching.  Viewers give feedback to the museum directly through comments on the photographs.

A search for “1stfans” on Technorati holds news and reviews around 1stfan membership and activities.  There are blogs advertising upcoming events, documenting those past, and sharing the successes and sometimes criticism of the program.   Some use 1stfans as a model of how social networking tools can help connect other museums with their communities.

Reviews of 1stfans:

Brooklyn Museum Adds the “Social” to Their “Social Media” Campaigns at Great Dance,  Art Charities Turn to Online Techniques at Charity Navigator Blog, and Art on Twitter: Yes, but is it Twart at guardian.co.uk review 1stfans activities, some relating it to other social networking experiences.

Blogs on the An Xiao experience:

Artist An Xiao on Twitter as a Medium at http://maryanndevine.typepad.com, My Interview with An Xiao This Wednesday and Two Tweeters & a Tweety Bird: @thatwaszen & @hrag’s Chat by Hrag Vartanian

Blogs on Matt Held:

1stfans Meetup For March 2009: Artist Matt Held by Brooklyn Museum

Kudos, Brooklyn Museum, on your 1stfans membership program and your successes in reaching out to your community in open, two-way conversation.  I expect to see more museums, schools and libraries follow this model of utilizing social networking tools to bring people from remote locations into the institutions that have showed their appreciation by listening, acting, and openly sharing with their supporters.

Logo citations:

1stfans logo, http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/join/.

Twitter logo, http://twitter.com/home.

Flickr logo, http://www.flickr.com/.

Technorati logo, http://vectorlogo.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html.