Some thoughts to start the conversation:

Most museums now get more visitors online than in person. (And if we think in terms of per capita return on investment alone, our directors should realize what a bargain their web teams are!)

What are we doing to maximize that online encounter in terms of:

• Encouraging visitors to prepare for their visit by downloading our podcasts & audio tours prior to coming to the museum - and thereby saving us money and resources in terms of on-site support for hardware distribution and management, while building a longer-lasting relationship with the visitor, e.g. through podcast subscriptions?
• Building interactive experiences such as bookmarking (through handhelds, cellphones or kiosks) into our visitors' on-site experiences, to bring them back to the website after their on-site visit and thereby prolonging and deepening the relationship between visitor and museum?
• Publishing our digital content more widely to extend our online presence beyond the 'walled gardens' that are our websites?
• Similarly, dissolving the walls of the museum itself through using mobile interpretation to link the on-site experience with externally-held content (e.g. related artworks in another museum's collection) and applications (e.g. Twitter)?

Some thoughts about post-visit / use of handheld follow through on website:

At the Tate conference there was a really useful point (made by Silvia, I believe) that we need to be careful and realistic  about the targets we set for how many people will use advanced features such as bookmarking and following through and deeper engagement through the website. The question was raised: how do we benchmark this?

I would reccoemend anyone interested in this reads a book by Clay Shirkey "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations"

http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Organizing-Organizations/dp/1594201536

Apart from being a generally fascinating and inspiring book, it also has a useful section on the "power law curve", which is to web 2.0 what the "bell curve" is to web 1.0.

This should help set quantitative targets for things like this.... if not qualitative!

Matthew Cock