Nine years later and I'm still bitter - and that's an unhealthy emotion. So I'm blogging as a form of catharsis. Back in 2012, I was taking the fledgling "QRpedia" project to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We had a cool little invention - stick a QR code on a museum exhibit and when a visitor scans it, they're automatically taken to the Wikipedia page in their native language. Nifty, huh? The project was still in beta, but was gaining traction with museums and galleries around the…
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The QRpedia project I helped found has gone from strength to strength. It's now in more museums, towns, and art galleries than ever before. It's helping open up exhibits to people in hundreds of languages. That said, I've not been able to devote as much time as I would like to - nor have other project members. We'd like to see it blossom and grow but, sadly, our resources are too limited to be able to make much impact. So, it with great pride that we're happy to announce that QRpedia has…
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I was recently interviewed in The Guardian talking about the use of mobile phone in cultural institutions - museums, libraries, galleries, etc. I was talking about the QRpedia project I co-founded. During the course of the interview, a phrase fluttered into my head - "The Engagement Economy." It wasn't a phrase I'd heard before - although Jane McGonigal wrote an excellent paper in 2008 with the same name. McGonigal's paper talks about getting people to work on a project. My idea of the…
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This was the sign that greeted me as I made my way into The Camden Head for the first Museums Showoff... Now, I've no idea why I was the headliner - but I certainly wasn't going to complain! Museums Showoff is a spin-off from the popular Science Showoff. The idea is that ten speakers come along and show off. They chat about what they're doing, things they've made, stuff they've built, or anything that gets their juices flowing. With the permission of the participants, I recorded the event. …
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An email from FourSquare this morning reminded me what I was doing a year ago today. I spent the morning at The British Museum doing the first public experiments with QRpedia. This is a video of the historic occaision. So, here's a quick run down of what this volunteer-lead project has acheived in a single year, in no particular order: Derby Museum installation UK National Archives installation The Children's Museum of Indianapolis installation Sofia Zoo installation …
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We're incredibly excited to announce that QRpedia has made the shortlist for the Smart UK Project! We are searching for the UK's Most Innovative Mobile Companies. Our aim is to celebrate UK innovation and showcase the best examples of UK mobile innovation. We'll be presenting at the competition in January - if we make the final six, we'll be off to Mobile World Congress. Look out world! Here comes QRpedia! …
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This blog post is designed to foster a technical and logistical discussion. In much the same way as the earlier QRpedia language discussion did. One of the most requested features in QRpedia is to have custom URLs. For example, the British Museum may want a URL of "bm.qrwp.org". This has two main advantages. Better analytics. Although the British Museum is the only place likely to have the Rosetta Stone, many museums will have exhibits about "Ancient Egypt" or "Gold". By…
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As you may know, the Miro Exhibit is fully equipped with Catalan compatible QRpedia codes. Here's a great video showing off the exhibit: You can jump straight to the two-minute mark if you're just interested in the QR action. …
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Lori Philips has been interviewed by the Indianapolis Woman Magazine. A great article discussing the role of the Wikipedian in residence and how QRpedia codes have taken off there. …
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Beautiful video about the work Derby Museum has been doing with Wikipedia & QRpedia. Derby Museum using multilingual QR codes from Andrew James Sykes on Vimeo. In 2011 Wikipedians wrote and translated 1200 new articles to allow the museums objects to read in over a dozen languages using QRpedia codes. …
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The "Wiki Loves Monuments" project in Russia has been featured on Russian TV. Check out the QRpedia codes! You can see all the articles (and their QRpedia codes) - there is also a list of articles which need translating. QRpedia's Name There is some confusion about QRpedia's name. Торчковій музонъ@dslraveReplying to @QRpedia@QRpedia please answer me, QRpedia = QR + wikipedia or QR + encyclopedia? I need it as a prooflink for [[ru:QRpedia]].❤️ 0💬 2🔁 020:32 - Wed 02 November 2011 The answe…
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The Joan Miró exhibition in has just gone live with QRpedia codes! This project has been the brain-child of Àlex Hinojo - the Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Museu Picasso. He first mentioned it to us in May and we've worked hard to deal with the challenges of the Catalan language. Congrats to Àlex and the whole team for a successful launch. Press release in Catalan. …
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