Sno-Isle Genealogical Society The Sounder Volume 26, Issue 1 First Quarter, 2012 Serving Snohomish and Island County Genealogists for over Twenty-Five Years

Sounder Banner Graphic by David Raney

MOBILE WEB TOURS:
Another Reason to Break Down
and Finally Get a Cell Phone
by Margaret Robe Summitt

Nearly everyone has a cell phone these days.  I assume that I am like many SIGS members and genealogists in general in my long-term resistance to this device.  Yet, as of this fall, even I have broken down and gotten one.  I use it mainly as a walkie-talkie in my capacity of chauffeur for teenagers who are to be dropped off and picked up, and to whom I might say, “I can see you, and I’m parked just about 50 feet ahead of where you are.”            Today 90 percent of the U.S. population has some type of cell phone.  Of these, 55 percent, like me, have basic service, but the number of “smart” phone users is growing and is now 45 percent and rising.  You probably know that cell phones, especially “smart” ones, can be used for much more than making and receiving phone calls.  Someone may have shown you a photo, or a video clip, taken with a phone.  It’s commonplace these days to access the internet, including social media, through one’s digital telephone.           I firmly believe that the future of genealogy, and genealogical societies, lies in people who are familiar with digital technology.  The more information made available in digital format, the more people are attracted to genealogy.  They will visit society web pages, and investigate the digital offerings of museums and historical locales.           Cell phone in hand, the public can download audio or video information and tour museums, historic parks and cemeteries, once these places have been equipped with the appropriate technology.  These cyber tours can include pictures and video clips, or audio only.           This article is about how these mobile web tours are developed.  Building these tours is not difficult but there’s a lot of work involved.  The key is organization of the material before involving the digital aspect.           Fred CRUGER of the Granite Falls Historical Society begins the story of the digitization of the GFHS by saying that they started in 2003 with an organization problem.  The inventory of their holdings showed an abundance of historic photographs.  Therefore, Fred organized an effort to digitize them.  There was also an abundance of old maps, which were in large format and hard to store.  Recruiting local high school students, the GFHS had the maps digitized, and made it possible for different maps to be overlaid.   The result was the Snohomish County digital mapping project, which was made available to all the member organizations of the League of Snohomish County Heritage Organizations.  Then there was an abundance of old newspapers, which the GFHS also digitized and made searchable.            Having done all this digital organization, the GFHS reached out to the community.  The first of its mobile web projects was a self-guided cyber tour of historic Granite Falls, funded by a grant from the League.  This tour is available through cell phone, padPC, or smart phone.  Apple iphone users can get a free app for the tour at the Apple iStore or download the entire tour using Wifi.  The tour has 18 stops, at which the user can compare historic and contemporary photos of sites, play games, answer quizzes and leave feedback about the tour.  Call (360) 654-4362 (audio descriptions only) or visit  www.myoncell.mobi/13606544362 .           The second project undertaken by GFHS was a self-guided cyber tour of the Mountain Loop Highway, which is the second largest tourist attraction in the county and is full of historic places, but much of it has no cell phone service.            For the Mountain Loop tour the GFHS chose the OnCell company because it allows the smart phone user to download the entire tour before hitting the road.  This tour has 35 stops and the traveler can choose the full loop from Granite Falls to Arlington, or a mini-loop in the Jordan Road/Burn Road area. Free apps are available from Apple or the entire tour can be downloaded at the Granite Falls Museum.  Go to www.myoncell.mobi/13603553170 or call (360) 355-3170 for audio descriptions only.           This past November, the group Historic Everett went online with a tour of 85 locations on the National Register, the State Register, and the Everett Register of Historic Places, plus a tour of the Hewitt Avenue National Historic District.  Historic Everett developed this tour with a grant through county tourism funds.  Go to www.myoncell.mobi/4252490212 or call (425) 249-0121 for audio descriptions only.           The City of Snohomish has a cyber tour with 18 stops in the historic district.  Dial  (425) 507-0441 for audio only, or visit www.myoncell.mobi/14255070441 .           Aviation buffs can access Snohomish County Aviation Adventures with 14 stops,  including the Paine Field/Boeing area, Harvey Field/Snohomish and the Arlington Airport.  Go to  www.myoncell.mobi/14255070442 or dial (425) 507-0442 for audio only.             For the phone-equipped tourist, the tour begins with arrival at the location and accessing the web tour for that location (or dialing the number for audio only).  A greeting message will then play, in which the tourist will be oriented to the location as a whole, and invited to move on to the first stop on the tour, identified by a posted sign.  Once there, he will press ‘1’ to access the media for that stop.  He may go on to tour the stops in order, or may do them in any order he chooses.   He can watch photos segue into each other as in a slide show, accompanied by music and narration;  he could even watch video clips or link to YouTube.  He could answer trivia questions, go on a scavenger hunt, play games, and leave text feedback about how he liked the tour.  Some larger organizations even allow the tourist to connect to a credit card information page so that he can leave a donation.                   For the entity setting up the tour, the preparation work mostly involves organizing and writing the tour.  The entity then works with a mobile web tour company that acquires a local phone number for the tour and maintains the web site to which all the files are uploaded.  There are five steps in getting a tour going:                      First, identify the points of interest.  How many stops will there be?  Where will the numbered signs be posted? Second, write the scripts.  This is where research comes in.      Third, gather the content.  Upload all the audio, text and media files before you pick the ones you want at each stop.   Any type of audio file can be created;  the OnCell company recommends MP3.   No special equipment is necessary for the recordings; in fact, they can be done over the phone, although for the best audio quality it is best to use headphones and a mike.  The audio blurbs will be about 20 to 50 seconds long, limited only by the average attention span of the tourist, which is about 45 seconds.   At venues (such as Graceland, the home of Elvis PRESLEY) where some tourists are known to be very enthusiastic about the subject matter, a stop might have one primary (short) audio track for the casual tourist, and one secondary (longer) audio track for the aficionado.  These audio files are maintained at the web site of the company that is managing the tour. Fourth, build the tour by installing the signs designating each stop.  There is generally an extra charge for the small signs at the site.  If the tour employs visual media, the signs will bear QR codes.  What’s a QR code, you ask?  QR codes are ubiquitous nowadays; they are small checked black-and-white patterns to be scanned by the smart phone and then interpreted digitally as words and pictures.  At a cemetery tour, for instance, one could zoom the phone’s camera at QR-identified codes and then drag and drop the GPS coordinates into the cellphone.  This can be used to interpret individual gravestones!  There’s a radius trigger that allows for as little as ten feet between stops, and I’m hoping that soon it will be less, since often graves are less than ten feet apart. Fifth, put up signs around the area and start marketing, publicizing the tour with articles in local papers and announcements everywhere.           What does all this cost?  Well, grants would be necessary for small and local societies.  The OnCell service plan starts at $1500 for basic audio;  their ultimate audio starts at $2640 and standard multimedia, which includes slides and even YouTube clips, starts at $3780.   Monthly and seasonal pricing are available.   Signage is extra under this plan.

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