The NY Times writes about a couple of groups that are creating downloadable audio tours for museums, Art Mobs and Wooster Collective (With Irreverence and an iPod, Recreating the Museum Tour).

The creators of this guide, David Gilbert, a professor of communication at Marymount Manhattan College, and a group of his students, describe it on their Web site as a way to "hack the gallery experience" or "remix MoMa," which they do with a distinctly collegiate blend of irony, pop music and heavy breathing. It is one of the newest adaptations in the world of podcasting - downloading radio shows, music and kitchen-sink audio to an MP3 player.

Second, there is a most definite need for better interfaces for these sorts of projects. One real nice thing about existing museum audio tours is that they include some sort of numbering system so that it is easy to listen to different audio in a non-sequential order. That doesn't seem particularly likely for iPods, but perhaps some sort of metadata convention could be considered, perhaps one that museums can sign onto (although it would cut down into their audio tour revenues, it would increase their educational mission accomplishment).

Third ... it is pretty darn cool. Think I'll start my own.

Fourth, check out this earlier post of mine: GPS-Guided Audio Tours Launched in Montgomery, AL

via Scripting News