MuseTrek is a web and mobile application that lets you create, consume and share “muses” – text, picture, video and audio entries about the place you visit. The more you muse the more you discover new places, people and new treasures.
Whether it’s inside the Louvre, or just down your block, if you have anything to say about a place, muse about it. Doing so invites your friends and MuseTrek followers to discover your thoughts as they travel and explore. We have a growing set of listed sitemaps so you can add your musings to inside places as well as the outside world. We even have ‘virtual’ maps such as Future of Water where you can add your ideas around a topic and link them back to the real world.
So imagine getting off the bus in a new city, or looking for a new place to go, or even just wanting to learn something about a familiar place you love. Let the muses of your friends guide you or find muses you like and follow the people who created them. See where it takes you!
A muse is a text, image, audio or video entry about a place. Think anything from a personal anecdote or place-based journal entry, to a short tweet, game, picture, or comment, from a Youtube clip or home video, all the way to an informational structured essay. Muses are created at outside places anywhere in the world and indoor locations on a growing set of venue sitemaps. Tag each muse to link it to other related muses all around the world. The more you muse and tag your entries, the more you will discover related muses..
MuseTrek emerged out of the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard University as an idea, seeded by Harvard Professor David Edwards. It was subsequently transformed and developed by Harvard students Mishy Harman, Tarik Umar, and Aviva Presser, and Brandeis University student Roee Gilron. MuseTrek was further developed in the Idea Translation Lab Workshop at Edward’s Le Laboratoire in Paris, with the participation of design students from State College and museum insider Noemie Tassel. Here in Paris it was first tested in a small preliminary experiment at the Louvre.
Today MuseTrek continues to grow with the original team members Mishy, Roee and Noemie, and David Edwards ArtScience Labs as partial owners, plus founding CEO Bill Jacobson, a Boston area entrepreneur and owner of the WorkBar co-working center. Rounding out the team are tech development lead by Matt Krom and design prowess lead by Doug Gray.
There have been many fantastic contributors to MuseTrek along the way; from Boston Public Schools participants to an iPhone app from technologist Cashman Andrus in Brazil to the artistic interpretation of installation artist Shipa Gupta creating the centerpiece for MuseTrek’s public experiment at the Louvre’s 20th anniversary celebration of the Pyramid. Best part is this is only the beginning…
