2011/08/18

How to use historic photos and postcards in tourism - Small Biz Survival

How to use historic photos and postcards in tourism

Posted: 17 Aug 2011 10:13 AM PDT

Small towns change slowly, but they do change. Historic photographs and photo postcards show how your town used to look. But how do you share those with visitors? They're on display in the museum, right? Well, young people aren't going to your museum. So, let's reach those young people where they live, right on their phones.

Anybody can do this idea

Dig out those old photos. Figure out the locations they match up to, and go there. Hold up the photo so it looks right in perspective, and take a picture of it. Here are examples from @backroadsnews:

Recently started one of those #dearphoto style efforts here i... on Twitpic

When Ad Astra went on a statewide tour before being place on ... on Twitpic

Looking northwest at the west side of the Washington courthou... on Twitpic

It's a style being popularized by Dear Photograph. But I see it as a major tourism tool.

Go make your own photos like this in your town. Put them on your website. Post them on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and then make a movie of them and put them on YouTube. (In other words, spread them around.)

If you just did that, that would be super cool. But, let's go another step.

For the moderately high tech

What if you invited your visitors to get involved? What if you gave them the photos, and let them stand in your town and hold them up, trying to match them to reality? Let's do that, but without printing paper photos to do it.

First, scan the old photos and reformat them to be under 100k in size so they are mobile friendly.
Then post them online. Flickr would be a great place to post them. Posterous would also work. Both give you room to includes some additional info about the historic view. For bonus points, include a link to the Google Places page for the historical museum where they keep the originals of these photos or some other attraction that makes sense.
Create a QR code link to the mobile-friendly photo page.
Go find the right spot to stand to line up the photo like in the examples above. Post the QR code there, along with an arrow facing the right direction to line it up, even if you have to paint it on the street.

What happens is this:

Visitors can scan the QR code, and their phone loads the photo page.
They can hold up the phone, and try to line up the perspective.
They also can read the additional historical info you put in there, and see the link to the historical museum. They might even go, since you seem like such a cool town.

Make it a tour

Put together a list of the stops, and you have a tour. If you did this on Posterous, it's practically done. All you need to add is a post with directions. Flickr automatically can map those photos. How's that for cool?

Super high tech folks can try this one

What's the next step? Augmented Reality. Your visitor loads an AR app on their smart phone. They turn on the camera and use it to look around. Their smart phone camera shows them an augmented version of reality, with the old photos automatically layered on top of the current world. Unless you're a big techie, get a developer to help you.

Make it interesting
The visitors who respond to this will be younger, higher tech, and easily bored. Make your text lively and interesting. Tell the stories your museum ladies never want you to tell, the ones that really make the town come to life.

Get more tourism ideas
Want to know how you do a QR code? How to make a mobile friendly page? That's the kind of stuff we teach at Tourism Currents.

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