Audio Slide Show at Minnesota's Split Rock Lighthouse

Here's a long overdue update to the first stage of our new Minnesota placecasts:

The signs are at the printer and will soon go up in Duluth! Visitors to the iconic Enger Tower will soon have the chance to hear audio "tours" from local experts about the fascinating landscape below the tower. CLICK HERE to preview the tours. Any feedback is welcome.

Signs for our first seven Minneapolis murals will go up in September as well. More exciting is that we're now partnering with the city to create a dozen more artist interviews to be accessible at works of public art throughout the city. I'm interviewing the artists now and those will hopefully be available this fall.

I'm also overhauling the historical tour of the Northstar Rail Line. It'll feature interviews and audio rather than just me chattering on. It'll be ready this fall, but since most winter Northstar runs happen before dawn and after dusk, we may not launch the new version until next spring.

I haven't had any time to review new tours around the country, but there are more and more coming out each day. I'm excited our friends at the Minnesota Historical Society have created a walking tour of the State Fair this year.

There's also a must-hear presentation by former NPR producer Bradley Klein about "Designing and Producing Audio Tours" at the Association of Independents in Radio web site.

Summer is winding down. Keep discovering news sounds and places while you can!
-Jeff

Minneapolis Murals first draft

Here's a preview of the Minneapolis Murals Project I'm working on. I used Google Fusion Tables to create this map. I'll be able to add other projects to the same map as they come on line. I'll only publish the murals now because it's the one project where the audio is actually ready.



Soon the audio will be available on-site via SMS/phone and hopefully we'll get a mobile web site up as well.

Signs for Placecasting

As I work on creating a few sets of Placecasts around Minnesota, I'm thinking about what the signs should look like to let people know the audio is available. I'm going to collect sign images here. Feel free to send some in:

I found this at the Lincoln Memorial one night. Simple cell phone interface with a good preview of the topics:

A much more mysterious set of signs in Toronto. No hint of the content, but high "cool" factor that must have generated calls: