New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has revamped its Web site with a goal of creating a new museum shop database that can be segmented by areas of interest.
Howard Holzer, a spokesman for the museum, notes that the site (www.metmuseum.org) includes a number of new features that will allow the Met to get a better idea of its Web patrons’ tastes.
For example, visitors can customize their online cultural experience with My Met Calendar. The personalized list of preferences allows users to be reminded by e-mail about specific events or exhibitions at the museum.
Visitors’ preferences are also tracked with My Met Gallery, which lets art lovers store images of his or her favorite pieces online.
The Met, which has been online since October 1995, will further expand its online presence this spring with an affiliate program designed to let the museum shop create revenue-sharing opportunities with other Web sites.
The Web site was designed and developed by Icon Nicholson NY and the Metropolitan Museum. Some 3 million people visit the Met virtually each year, compared with the 5.5 million who visit the museum in the “real world.”
In 1870, the Met was among the first museums to establish a gift shop. Today, visitors to the Web site can, of course, buy something from the store or even become a member online. The online store offers over 1,000 items, more than in its print catalog. The site also connects pages devoted to a special exhibition with a page from which a visitor can order items related to the particular exhibit.
In addition, the Web site includes the sorts of things one would expect from a museum site: information on the collections; specific pieces of its holdings; and online access to the Metropolitan’s Thomas J. Watson Library. Each day, the site’s splash page opens with a different “ArtiFact,” a piece from the Met’s collection designed to attract visitors both online and off.
The charter of the Metropolitan calls for it to preserve and encourage all art, from antiquity to avant-garde, although many art enthusiasts feel the museum has long since ceded the contemporary scene to younger, more aggressive institutions.
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