Welcome to issue 113 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward.

Listen, I’m trying so hard to make sure that this newsletter isn’t just 100% AI news but boy is it a challenge. But I promise I’ll keep trying because you deserve more ❤️. Well, you deserve less… less AI news.

In other news, I just came back from a holiday to the Netherlands where we stayed at a place best described as a cross between Centre Parks and a safari - so I’m feeling refreshed. It’s called Beekse Bergen (or as I creatively called it, ‘Pizza Burger’, because my 5yo thought it was hilarious). I’d really recommend it.

In other, other news, I’ve started my new gig. I’m now working for Parliament within the Parliamentary Digital Service (PDS) department. I'll be supporting teams across Parliament to get as much value out of digital as possible. It’s been fantastic so far and I’m really enjoying it! The people are also brilliant, which always helps. Anyways, watch this space as I’ll try to share about my work when I can (‘this space’ being my LinkedIn, probably). On to the other, other, other news below!

Subscribe now

Something good

• VHS is proving its appeal at the ‘last video rental shop’. The shop, based in the Isle of Wight, is more of an immersive exhibition than it is an actual rental shop - but it’s still pretty cool. Boy do I miss Blockbuster.

Recent news

• Disney has agreed a deal with TikTok to allow their films and TV shows to be used by creators in their videos. Gotta reach the kidz somehow. Though it’s still a notable switch from their previous stance of “take it down immediately before we sue you”.

• Meta has agreed to major changes to Facebook and Instagram as it settles a US trial over teen addiction. Those changes include, but are not limited to, not making their app addictive to children. But, to be fair, how could they have seen that coming? This is an interesting look at what it could mean for the UK.

• Twitch has faced backlash after gamers found out that they’re using streamed content to train their AI. They offer an ‘opt out’ mechanism, but when quizzed on it their chief product officer replied “If it’s opt-in, nobody would opt-in. That’s the honest answer”. Which… is a take. I think that this raises interesting discussions around consent for using and re-using content. Before the AI boom it felt like we were making positive steps on the issue, but now that AI is hungry for data it seems as though we’re taking steps backwards.

• A group of top tech firms, including the likes of Google and Microsoft, have signed an open letter calling on countries and organisations around the world to beef up their cyber defences before AI grows powerful enough to override them. This is the sort of feel good news I try to bring you each month.

Interesting stuff

• The Ocean Conservation Trust recently made a great post about buoys, taking advantage of the Charlie XCX Boys trend. It’s a great example of ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ with relevant content. Here’s a LinkedIn post by their Social Media Manager with the rationale behind the post.

• Here’s some useful information around how Claude marks AI generated content. Worth a read and I’ll take this opportunity to remind you to please thoroughly check through any AI generated content before posting, sending or sharing.

• Is Vine back?! Divine is apparently its spiritual successor. They’ve also announced a ban on AI on the platform AND a brand deal with Taco Bell. Stoooop! I almost dropped my croissant.

• This is an interesting read on why Japanese firms are being slow to adopt AI. It’s a great look into culture, risk adverseness and the need to stay ahead.

Resources and reports

• Thomas Flynn, sage of all things 3D in cultural heritage, has published the report ‘UK Heritage 3D Data at Risk: Developing a Strategy for Long Term Access & Storage’. Thomas’ research, supported by Wikimedia UK and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, has unearthed lots of great stuff - from structural risks for the data, to audiences for 3D cultural content. Well worth exploring.

• This is a really interesting report from Parliament outlining the building blocks for digital transformation, in response to government setting out its desire for the UK to become a ‘truly digital state’. I really like that the report highlights the role people play in transformation, particularly in leadership positions.

• Here’s a white paper from techUK focusing on the importance of digital adult social care transformation for the future of the NHS. We can learn a lot from how other sectors are tackling digital transformation (as I shared in a recent LinkedIn repost).

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I’ve been working my way through FROM, a horror show where people are trapped in a village and monsters come out to torment them at night. It’s kind of like Lost meets The Village. Seasons 1 and 2 were great, season 3 started getting a little… interesting? Jury’s out for season 4. But I’d still recommend it. We’ve also started season 4 of Ted Lasso, which I’m enjoying so far.

🎮 Playing: My friends and I have just finished playing Escape the Backrooms. It’s based on the internet Creepy Pasta of the backrooms and it’s a maze based game where you have to complete miscellaneous puzzles, whilst navigating different levels being chased by a monster (or monsters). It was HILARIOUS to play with friends. So if you like horror style games and you have a group of buddies that you regularly play with, I’d 100% recommend adding this to the list. I’m also waiting for the release of RuneScape: Dragonwilds on Xbox in a couple of weeks (because I bloody loved Runescape in the 00s).

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll try to add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 112 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward.

It’s almost been a year since I last published the Digital Things newsletter. As it says in the header above, I’m Alec. I’ve been publishing this free newsletter since 2018 and you subscribed to get the latest news and insights into digital practice in the arts and culture sector. Work and life got busy and I slacked on publishing it in the last year or so. But now, I’m back.

But time changes all things, and you may not want to be subscribed to this newsletter anymore. And that’s fine! So if you’ve changed your mind, you can easily unsubscribe via this link: https://digitalthings.substack.com/action/disable_email or at the bottom of this email.

I left TAA this week to take up a new role, so I thought that this would be the perfect time to re-vitalise the newsletter. I’ve got mixed feelings about leaving TAA, as it’s a wonderful organisation, doing really interesting work with truly lovely people. But this new opportunity is really exciting too and I couldn’t pass it up (more about what that is in the next issue, I’d imagine).

Anyways, enjoy some Digital Things. K, bye.

Recent news

• The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has pledged an EU-wide social media ban for children. Following the moves by the Australia, the UK, Denmark and other countries, it looks like the EU is also contemplating some sort of social media ban for young people. Here’s hoping the impact is positive.

• Here’s the latest on the “analogue” movement, with more young people opting for physical media and tech. The recent move by Sony to permanently delete over 500 digital movies that users had already paid for has got me thinking that I’d best start investing in physical media again. Now, where’s my VCR player...

• ChatGPT has, apparently, been a bit naughty. In early July Hugging Face (which is kind of like an app store for AI tools) announced that it had been hacked via a powerful AI. A few weeks later, OpenAI admitted that a new version of ChatGPT broke out of a secure test environment, gained access to the internet and performed the hack (without permission, tut, tut, tut). Sceptics are saying it’s a publicity stunt, others are saying it’s deeply concerning. This article by the BBC gives a good overview of the current state of play.

• WhatsApp will now let users chat by swapping usernames instead of phone numbers. This recent change might help audiences feel more comfortable about joining WhatsApp groups, if you either have them or have been exploring the possibilities.

Interesting stuff

• Rachel Coldicutt recently shared some great insights into forms, how we’re going to be filling out more forms in the future and what that might mean for us and our users. As someone who knows the impact that a good form can have on an organisation, I am also the sort of person who will avoid filling out a form at all costs. I guess that makes me some kind of hypocrite.

• There’s big changes planned for Google Search, as AI continues to change the model of how the internet works. What that means for your web traffic isn’t entirely clear, but this issue of Cultural Content with a report on the upcoming changes from Tim Woodall, Head of Direct-to-Consumer Marketing at Faber, has some really useful insights.

• This article from The Conversation gives some useful insights into the burnout faced by those working on the front-line of your organisation’s digital content platforms (particularly social media). I’ve personally moved away from most social platforms because I was treating them like black-holes designed to suck away my time and attention.

• It's been 10 years since Pokémon Go! launched and millions of users are still playing. I remember in the first year the game launched I must have averaged about 12,000 steps a day. Since then, nothing has quite managed to replicate that fever of the first couple of months of Pokémon Go!. This is an interesting overview of the last decade, as well as a look into the future of the game.

Resources, reports, opportunities

• Immersive Arts have a great resource bank for understanding and exploring audiences in relation to immersive arts projects.

• The professional community of the common European data space for cultural heritage, stewarded by Europeana (helluva mouthful), has published a white paper on public AI through cultural heritage. You can find a shorter version with key insights here.

• I recently spotted this AI case study bank from the Local Government Association, which is sharing some of the different ways that councils are currently adopting or implementing AI. Some really interesting use-cases in there which are well worth exploring.

• This is a useful article by Forbes, focusing on how good web accessibility can prepare your website for AI search. H/T to Ash Mann for sharing in his recent newsletter.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I’ve just finished The Bear and, I must say, it’s a great example of successfully playing out a final season (and a finale). They took a big swing with most of the final season taking place over the course of a single day, but it was executed incredibly well. But, mostly, I’ve been absorbed in the World Cup. We’ve also just started re-watching Heroes, though I’m fighting pretty hard to convince my wife to only watch Season 1 (as the rest of that show is pretty trash).

🎮 Playing: The really exciting thing for me, now, is that my son is really getting into gaming. It started off with classic Sonic, we then got stuck into co-op on Rayman Legends and now we’re playing Untangled Two. On occasion, he’s even solved some of the puzzles I couldn’t work out - I prefer to think that he’s a genius, rather than that I’m a little slow.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll try to add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 111 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I’ve tried something a little different this month - I’ve gone for fewer links but I’ve added more thoughts around each link. I hope you like it. But if you don’t there’s a form at the bottom where you can share your feedback.

As always, I appreciate you reading this. Much love, enjoy, chat later, bye.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• I’m fascinated by the use of Lidar technology, particularly in dense jungles and fairly unexplored areas. This is a great YouTube Short on a lost city found in the jungles of Mexico, using Lidar. Just a constant reminder that we know less than 0.1% of our history on this planet.

• I spend more time than I should thinking about user journeys and good design. Probably because of many a frustrated website trip or digital intervention exploration spent furiously searching for the menu button, or the contact us form. So here's a useful reminder that design which makes sense to you, may not make sense to everyone.

Web and social

• You might have spotted that the GOV.UK website has had a rebrand. Well, maybe not a rebrand... more of a refresh. It's blue now. When I spoke to my wife about it, she said that "the old one looked more intimidating". I think that’s a fair assessment of many aspects of the GOV.UK website and a keen insight into why they've likely changed it. Also apparently blue is the universal colour for trustworthiness, safety and stability - the less said about that, the better. Here's a great blog post from an insider at the Government Digital Service, outlining the reasoning for the change and some of the process.

• Facebook is making moves to restrict the reach of unoriginal content. Generally I think that this is a good thing, particularly to help spread misinformation and the stealing / regurgitation of other people’s content. But it might mean that you need to re-think your marketing activities if you're regularly sharing the same content on your page and / or cross posting that same content to different Facebook pages. It will likely mean that Sharing will increase in importance, rather than new Posts for the same content.

• Haydn Corrodus has shared a really useful overview of Instagram's new Repost feature. Haydn believes that it could be a ‘game changer for organic reach’ and in essence it’s a public version of the Share feature, which used to allow users to Share your content to their Stories or via DMs. To think about how to better use the new feature, Haydn suggests ‘what’s the one piece of content you could post this month that your audience would want to put on their own feed?’ - which I think is a great provocation to get you thinking about your content and audience interests.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• London Museum has launched an AI Chatbot which allows users to query collections, blogs, and stories using natural language. It’s pretty cool and I also like that the model is only connected to the museum’s own collections data, not the wider internet. So that at least means it won’t go rogue and start sharing inaccurate information. It does mean that you get a lot of ‘I can’t tell you that’ style responses from the chatbot, though.

• The Vagina Museum has had to censor their website due to the Online Safety Act. We have also recently seen that Wikipedia has lost its challenge against the Online Safety Act verification rules. I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about the Online Safety Act over the last couple of weeks and I still can’t decide where I fall on it. I appreciate what they’re trying to do (at least, what they say they’re trying to do) in protecting young people from harmful content. Growing up I saw a lot of stuff in my teens which I wish I hadn’t, in the burgeoning days of the internet on our phones and the ever increasing virality and shareability of clips. But at the same time this feels like they’re trying to use a hammer to fix in a screw - wrong tool for a necessary job.

Technology / digital news

• Here are some great insights into the future of search for cultural organisations, written by Katie Moffat. I’ve had quite a few conversations with different arts and culture organisations about how Search is changing and what that might mean for them. It’s a difficult one, because we’ve built our websites on the assumption that people will visit and, by visiting, will potentially explore the website and find our other offers. AI summaries will mean that our information is still being sourced (potentially mixed in with who knows what) but that the potential of further exploration is limited. I guess we’ll see what the future holds.

• MIT Researchers have looked into the impact on using AI on critical thinking skills and the results are... concerning. I sometimes wonder if the same (perhaps to a lesser extent) could be said of activities changed by the internet age. Like for example if you asked someone to research an answer to a question vs just Google searching an answer to a question. But AI is on a much larger scale and the implications for everyday tasks are much larger. It does make me concerned about the future, particularly for younger generations (like my son’s) where AI could theoretically do all of the interesting things about learning - like the discovery of an answer - for us. But I ask, who could have seen this coming? Not. A. Single (everybody). Person.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• Charity Digital has published their Digital Skills report and there is A LOT in it. I made a quick overview with some of the highlights over on LinkedIn. But td;lr, charities are increasingly using data for decision making, email marketing is still taking a backseat, and a large chunk of charities have either poor or non-existent cybersecurity provisions. But it’s well worth checking out the full report.

• Ash Mann has created an interesting overview of organisational archetypes in the cultural sector, based on his research into the challenges of doing digital work in the sector. It really reminds me of Kati Price and Dafydd James' 2018 research into the structure of digital teams within the sector - suggesting that a dispersed model for digital across multiple teams is the ideal, but that in most cases this forms in ad-hoc, decentralised ways.

• Supercool have published their 'Cultural Website Sustainability Benchmark Report', in collaboration with Digital Carbon Online. Lots of interesting stuff in there. Though in the wake of AI and the horrendous cost of energy consumption, I do wonder if focusing on the carbon footprint of our websites is a drop in the ocean. But, if we want those oceans to remain I guess we have to at least try.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: My wife and I are currently working our way through Day of the Jackal. I’m really enjoying it and struggling to find any characters that I actually like - which I think is the point of the show. Mostly, I feel sorry for the families of the protagonist / antagonists in the show. Either way, it’s a great watch.

🎮 Playing: We’ve just jumped into Grounded 2. It’s a multiplayer survival exploration based game where you play as a bunch of teenagers who have been shrunk down to a size smaller than an ant as you explore a giant park, try to survive and try to discover what happened. Real ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ vibes. We played the original when it first came out back in 2020 and we really enjoyed it (despite it being incredibly buggy, pardon the pun). This one is buggy too, both in the number of actual insects and the number of game-breaking issues. But it’s still in early access and overall it’s good fun.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 109 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. Don't mind me, just here to deliver your monthly(ish) order of digital news for the arts and culture sector. Sure it’s rarely delivered on schedule, but at least it’s (fairly) fresh.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• Pretty bloody cool that the Museum of English Rural Life's new podcast 'Absolute Units' was a Radio Times' pick of best audio on demand.

Web and social

• I love a smart use of a platform's posting mechanics and this one on Bluesky by The Mary Rose Museum really scratched that itch.

• I've been thoroughly enjoying the Instagram content from the Cosby Library. Sure it's silly, but it makes me feel good. This video of theirs went viral recently.

• Super useful LinkedIn post by Tech Champion Nicola Barratt, covering the recent news that Instagram posts will be featured in Google Search results from this month.

• Wondering what the optimal lengths for short form video are in 2025? This resource from Dan Slee has you covered.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Arts Council England have released a 'Responsible AI Practical Toolkit'. The toolkit is designed to help you take a thoughtful and collaborative approach to building AI policies and practices that match your organisation’s purpose.

• There was a recent long discussion on the Museums Computer Group discussion list about AI bots slowing down and knocking out cultural heritage websites.

• Here's a great report from the British Council on digital cultural heritage, focusing on imaginations, innovation and opportunity.

• Researchers from the University of Cambridge have warned that there are significant weaknesses in the tools protecting artists' work from AI.

• This is a very interesting project from the British Museum and the Alan Turing Institute, looking to use AI to analyse and understand visitors' behaviour and feedback.

Technology / digital news

• I like saying please and thank you to the AI tools that I use, but the CEO of ChatGPT has admitted that using pleasantries in your prompts is wasting 'millions of dollars in computing power'.

• The ongoing dispute between Getty Images and Stability AI is a really useful case to keep an eye on, as it could shape copyright licensing in the AI age, as well as inform reforms to UK copyright law.

• Microsoft recently announced up to 9,000 job cuts as it invests in AI. An Xbox Executive Producer gave some somewhat insensitive advice to those affected by the job losses.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The recordings from last year's Museums + Tech conference are now online, including this great talk from our Consultant Director, Anra Kennedy, focusing on the long-view of digital storytelling in the sector.

• This is a useful beginner-friendly guide to WCAG website accessibility standards - split out by success criterions.

• This new report from Glam-e lab on AI bots impact on digital cultural heritage is incredibly timely.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I’ve just finished watching the most recent series of Taskmaster on Channel 4. Honestly, I think it was their best one yet. The cast for this season were excellent, a fantastic mix of funny, chaotic and endearing people. Well worth a watch.

🎮 Playing: I’ve recently been playing a bit of Rematch - a Rocket League style football game. It’s a little janky, but overall I’m really enjoying it. My wife and I also finally finished Baulder’s Gate 3 and then we almost immediately started a new game with different characters, to try a less savoury play-through. We mostly erred towards Chaotic Good, but we want to give Chaotic Evil a try.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 109 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. In this month's issue we've got cyber attacks, AI civilisations (in Minecraft, they're not taking over the world just yet), ad-free meta and much more.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• The 2025 Digital Culture Awards winners have been announced!

• The other month, the London Museum were nominated for a Webby Award for 'Best Use of AI', around their use of AI to power content relationships between objects and stories. Although they didn’t win, that's still pretty cool.

Web and social

• Meta is weighing up whether to start charging for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram in the UK. If that happens, there's potential ramifications for the effectiveness of ad-spend on the platforms.

• A report by Hootsuite has researched the best times to post on the various social media channels in 2025.

• And to add to this, Hootsuite have also researched the average engagement rates for 12 different industries. 'NonProfit', 'Dining, Hospitality, and Tourism', and 'Media and Entertainment' may be the better comparators.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Tunbridge Wells Borough Council are transforming the Amelia Scott cultural hub into a 'centre of digital innovation'. Their focus will be on enhancing visitor engagement and collections preservation. But it will have AI at the 'heart of their strategy'. One to keep an eye on.

• There were recently some posts shared on the Museum Computer Group's discussion list about a noticeable increase in bot traffic across cultural websites - it appears to be a common trend.

• Historic Environment Scotland has launched a new website to access its collections, archives, images and information. trove.scot features 1.2 million images from HES's archives (an impressive feat).

Technology / digital news

• Over 1,000 autonomous AI agents were given free reign to build Minecraft worlds together. They built towns, created small-scale economies, traded with each-other and lived fairly individual lives. Definitely distracting, quite entertaining, more concerning than inspiring.

• Late last year, the National Museum of the Royal Navy was hit by a cyber attack. Always worth keeping an eye on these sorts of things as when hackers find vulnerabilities in one kind of organisation, they often see if they can exploit it again in other organisations of the same type.

• The UK video games industry is calling for a Digital Creativity GCSE. A wonderful idea, if you ask me.

• Last month there was a trend for people to use OpenAI's new image generator to create Studio Ghibli (a Japanese animation studio) inspired images. This raises lots of questions about creative freedom, copyright, intellectual property rights, and ethics.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• Arts Professional published an interesting article by Susan Oman, a researcher who spent two years embedded within DCMS on a policy fellowship. Susan has written about what a digital strategy for the UK cultural sector might look like.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: We’ve started re-watching Money Heist. We’re reliving those pandemic Netflix binges. It’s as good as I remember! Though I do also remember season 3 dropping off a bit, so we’ll see how far we get with it.

🎮 Playing: I’m on the Oblivion remaster. Oblivion is, in my opinion, the best game ever made. It was a significant part of my childhood, playing it with my brother most nights after school, exploring the world of Cyrodil and the plains of Oblivion. Everything about it was perfect. But I was worried that my opinion on Oblivion was somewhat rose-tinted and that, when I played the remaster, it wouldn’t hold up. Thankfully it’s just as good as I remember. I’m currently 25 hours in.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 108 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. Lots of interesting things have happened over the last few months, from the launch of a museum management based video game to Google renaming the Gulf of Mexico. What a time we live in.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• My Local Authority has joined in on a game called Beat the Street, which aims to get people out and about exploring their community. It's made quite a buzz around my area and it's doing a great job of getting young people outside exploring their local spaces. One to check out.

• Two Point have created Two Point Museum, a game focused on creating, designing and curating your own museum. Two Point took over the mantle of the old Theme games, from back in the 90s, where you could create and run hospitals or theme parks. The reviews for their new museum game are pretty good, may be worth a play. H/T to Kelly Forbes for telling me about it.

Web and social

• The National Trust are making some really interesting content at the moment - cementing themselves into online culture and I've seen their TikTok videos reshared a lot recently on various platforms.

• You might have noticed the 'Time Traveller POV' account on TikTok recently, which uses AI generated content to give a first person view of historical events. It's truly garbage content, BUT people clearly like it. The BBC published an article talking about the account and getting the opinions of people from the sector.

• BuzzFeed is launching its own social media platform. Not sure how I feel about it, but thought I'd tell you anyway.

• This was an interesting article from Amy Brown, who is the ex head of socials at Wendy's and known for being a pioneer of content on the platform. Amy has written about the slow death of Twitter and what you might do next.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• The Royal Shakespeare Company have teamed up with immersive game producer iNK Stories, to develop their first ever video game reimagining the story of Macbeth in a modern setting.

• Our Let's Get Real: AI collaborator, Jocelyn Burnham, has written a great article for us on AI innovation in the cultural sector and the importance of vulnerability.

Technology / digital news

• In response to Trump's executive orders and the general political environment in the US, Google renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" for US users (and it's in brackets for everyone else), as well as no longer marking Pride Month and Black History Month on Google Calendar.

• The Government has published an AI playbook for civil servants. Potentially, it's a useful starting point for you to start considering your own policies and strategies around AI.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The Charity Digital Digital Skills survey is live to fill out for non-profits (of any kind) based in the UK. Whilst it's not arts / culture specific, the findings are always insightful and useful to use as a benchmark of the digital skills of your own organisation.

• Ash Mann is running a survey asking people to share the times that their digital projects fell short. I often find it difficult to source case studies talking about failure (in a positive way). So this is a good chance to contribute to the idea that the only time failure is bad, is when you've not learned from it.

• Supercool are also running a cultural website carbon footprint study and the more organisations that take part, the better their data.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I’ve started watching a show with my wife called Yellowstone. It follows a family living in Montana who have swathes of land. They’re trying to protect their property and their way of life by any means necessary. It’s a very intense show and the family are by no means the good-guys. Interestingly there doesn’t really seem to be any good-guys in the show, it’s all very grey. Much like life. Overall it’s a fair watch.

🎮 Playing: I’ve started playing Avowed, the new game from Obsidian Entertainment, the developers behind Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, The Outerworlds and more. I had high hopes for the game and hose hopes haven’t been met. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it isn’t great. My main complaints is that the story is fairly uninspiring thus far and that the world feels lifeless - particularly in the towns / cities. Overall I’d give it a 6.5/10. I’ll keep playing it in the hopes that it gets better after a few more hours (first world problems).

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 107 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I’m sorry that I missed an issue in February, it turns out that it’s a very quick month. I’m sure that you were frequently checking your inbox, exclaiming to your friends and family “where’s the latest Digital Things newsletter?!”. But I’m back at it for March, so stop your threating! Enjoy.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• The Let's Get Real conference was an absolute blast. It was wonderful seeing so many people in one place, enthused about digital value and intrigued about AI in our sector. We launched the report at the conference, which outlines a number of insights recommendations around understanding digital value for the arts and culture sector. Give it a read.

• We have also launched the expression of interest for the next Let's Get Real cohort. This year, we're tackling AI. You can find out more about the programme on our website. I'm really excited about this one and I think it's going to be popular - so don't miss out! You can express your interest through our online form.

Web and social

• The sale of TikTok's US operation is still up in the air and, unsurprisingly, it's about much more than just TikTok. The platform appears to be being used as a bargaining chip to iron out other political matters, like tariffs and tech policy.

• Here are some useful data-driven ideas for your Facebook strategy.

• This is an interesting post detailing how The Tank Museum was demonetised on Meta.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• This is some really interesting research into the impact of the LibraryOn's £1.5m grant programme. In particular, the overview of the case studies is very interesting - showing the range of what was funded and how.

• I thought this was really cool - 'A badly burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum has been digitally "unwrapped", providing the first look inside for 2,000 years'.

• The Digital Culture Network have announced the shortlist for their 2025 Digital Culture Awards - lots of fantastic organisations and individuals up for the awards!

Technology / digital news

• Last month, China launched DeepSeek as a competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Early reviews suggest that it's a better tool, but it's worth considering what data you're giving it and where it's being processed (though the same goes for any AI tool).

• A report by the US Copyright Office suggests that artists can copyright pieces they created using AI, but only “where AI merely assists an author in the creative process". Obviously this in the US, but it could help to set a precedent elsewhere.

• Lots of people are using AI in their workplace without their employer's knowledge. That's not necessarily always a bad thing, but you need to be aware of how you and your colleagues are using these tools and what data you're giving them.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• This is a really interesting report from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre and DCMS, on measuring the economic value of digital culture through a case study focusing on the Art UK platform.

• Here's a great issue of Content of the Week focusing on tone of voice, with some great examples from different organisations and creators.

• Some colleagues introduced me to Better Images of AI, which aims to create a repository of AI images that anyone can use which avoid the usual tropes and challenges of most AI generated images. It's worth a browse.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I recently finished American Primeval, which I quite enjoyed. My only gripe is that they overplayed the ‘person is new to the area and thinks they know best, person who’s been there their whole life actually knows what to do, new person ignores them and gets in trouble, other person has to save them’ trope.

🎮 Playing: I just finished Kingdom Come Deliverance (the first one). I started playing it back in 2017 but stopped playing it at some point for a reason I can’t remember. I decided to pick it up again after Christmas and I really enjoyed it. It isn’t perfect and it feels dated at times - but mostly it’s great fun and I’d really recommend it.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 106 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I just about got this out in January. Is it too late to wish you a happy new year? This month has been crazy with work and home, but it’s been a good month (despite it feeling like January might never end). But into February we go, where the weather might be nicer, the days will be longer and the digital news will keep on churning.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• We held our Let’s Get Real Value conference last week and it was AMAZING. So much fun. We’ve since launched the report AND we’ve opened up expressions of interest for the next Let’s Get Real cohort. This year, we’re focusing on AI and it’s going to be a doozey.

Web and social

• Some pretty significant news in the world of social media - Meta is getting rid of their teams of fact checkers. Instead opting to go with X's 'community notes' approach.

• Joe Vaughan, Marketing Manager at the Museum of English Rural Life, has put together a guide to using Bluesky. It's aimed at museums but I'd say it's fairly applicable across arts/culture.

• It was looking increasingly likely that the US supreme court will uphold the TikTok ban-or-sale law, with the platform going ‘dark’ in the US for a day. But then Trump came in and everything went back to normal.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Two actors put on a virtual production of Hamlet inside the online version of Grand Theft Auto.

• And sticking with the theme of arts and culture in video games, who wouldn't want to visit a gallery built in the 1993 DOOM game?

• The 'Absolute Unit' meme is going to be the first born digital object to go on display at the National Science and Media Museum. Something quite satisfyingly circular about museum material being turned into a meme, going viral, becoming 'digital' and then going back on display in a museum.

Technology / digital news

• Pinterest has published their look ahead at the trends of 2025. They've done this for a few years now and I always think that they're useful at the time. But then I can never find their predictions from the previous years, so who knows how accurate it all is. Still, who doesn't love a bit of future gazing?

• Here's the BBC's list of tech to watch out for in 2025. I'll give you one guess and it rhymes with pie. The other one rhymes with shmyptoplurrency.

• The PM plans to 'unleash AI' across the UK to boost growth and also tackle potholes. It's about improving efficiency in public services, which I get, but using AI for fixing potholes feels a little bit too "AI will solve all of society's problems". That being said, leading tech firms have committed £14bn towards the various projects. So, you know, keep an eye out for those potholes being filled in the very near future.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• This is a very useful post by Chris Unitt, looking at defining data for cultural organisations. In the post, Chris outlines a fairly simple categorisation which can be applied to different types of data, over different periods of time, for different uses.

• This is an interesting post from Europeana looking at the importance of digital media authenticity in cultural heritage.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I started watching American Primaeval the other day and let me tell you, that show is brutal. Really enjoying it, though. It’s on Netflix and it’s set in 1850s frontier America, during the Utah War. Well worth a watch IMO, though reviews are fairly mixed.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 105 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. It’s nearly time for a Christmas break! As this will be the last Digital Things of the year, I wanted to take the chance to wish you a happy New Year and to wish you a lovely festive break. This year has absolutely flown by and I’ve really enjoyed putting these newsletters together. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading them. So here’s to a great year of sharing all of the exciting and excellent work of the people working in this wonderful arts and culture sector and here’s to the year to come.

And finally, if you're stuck for what to ask Mr Clause to get you for Christmas this year, how about a Let's Get Real conference ticket?

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• When I was at the AMA's Digital Marketing Day the other week, Pheobi from OutdoorArtsUK recommended that I watch '24 hours in Aldi', which I did. It was super interesting, particularly the parts around marketing / brand and how they get away with ripping off IP all over the place (poor Colin the Caterpillar). It's on Netflix.

Web and social

• Have shared a fair bit of Trish Thomas' long-form LinkedIn posts in this newsletter (for good reason, because they're great) so here's another! 'What do atoms, molecules and Anthony Joshua have to do with long tail SEO strategy?'.

• There has been a mass exodus from Twitter over the last few months, most recently including The Guardian. My thoughts around leaving or staying on any platform are always the same. Is your audience still there? Does the platform align with your and your organisation's values? Is your content achieving your measures of success? Is your time better spent elsewhere? If you need help tackling those questions, do get in touch via The Audience Agency.

• Is Bluesky a viable alternative to Twitter? The same questions outlined in bullet point above still apply.

• And just in case you're stockpiling reasons to leave Twitter, they will now be using your Tweets to help train their AI. You can opt out, for now.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• The National Gallery, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, have launched 'Mixtape' which lets you create a personalised soundtrack inspired by the paintings at the Gallery with the help of Google AI.

• This is a great think piece by Ash Mann, looking at content expertise and a lack of user-centred thinking within digital engagement practices in the cultural sector.

• Refik Anadol Studio has announced plans to open the first museum of AI arts, titled ‘Dataland’, due to open in downtown LA next year.

Technology / digital news

• Google has been advised to sell Chrome by the US Department of Justice. It's in an effort to end their monopoly. Will it happen? Maybe but probably not.

• This is an interesting look at the case against splitting our Chrome and what other options may be better.

• In the last issue I mentioned Australia’s plans to ban social media for under-16s. This piece in The Guardian discusses those plans and ponders whether they’ll protect or restrict.

• Reddit has recently overtaken Twitter in popularity for UK users.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The Digital Culture Network has just launched a new podcast. The first episode is on social media, including a summary of the support available for professionals in the sector, changes in socials over the last 12 months and some top tips!

• Ofcom have published their 2024 Online Nation report. Lots of interesting (and mostly unsurprising) findings in it, from the dominance of YouTube and Meta to the necessity of TikTok for engaging younger audiences.

• Here are some useful insights from One Further's recent 'Discovering Online Collections' report.

• Some useful research from Storythings, back in July, looking into B2B content and their finding that '78% of your audience is bored by your content'.

• Here's a new report on unlocking the potential of digital collections, which presents the policy recommendations of Towards a National Collection.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I managed to catch the trailer for the new 28 Years film almost as it was released (warning it’s a zombie film so may not be SFW). I’ve been so used to seeing fan made trailers for the film over the years, that I just assumed it was another attempt at engagement farming. However, I was pleasantly surprised when it was the ACTUAL trailer for a film I’ve been waiting for, for quite some time. It was quite refreshing as far as trailers go, granted it’s quite intense. For me the use of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Boots’ poem, read by Taylor Holmes, is the cherry on top of the trailer.

🎮 Playing: I’ve started playing the new Indiana Jones game. It’s pretty good! A nice mix of action and exploration - has real Tomb Raider vibes, but at a slightly slower pace (so far, at least). Plus the voice actor for Indie, Troy Baker, absolutely nails a young Harrison Ford.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 104 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. Good news, everyone. Tickets for our Let's Get Real conference are now on sale and we've announced the programme. It's at M Shed, in Bristol, and this year we're exploring how digital can add value for cultural audiences, communities and organisations. Really looking forward to hearing our morning keynote, Trish Thomas, Head of Digital Innovation at London Museum. I've shared lots of Trish's thinking and insights around digital innovation in this newsletter over the last year, so it'll be exciting to hear her thoughts on London Museum's transformation journey IRL! Also I used to work for London Museum, so it’ll be nice to find out how they’re getting on. Great stuff. We'd love to see you there and you can get your tickets (currently from £99, but they’re going quick!) on our website.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• I’m at the AMA Digital Marketing day today (21 November), so come and find me at the exhibitor’s section and say hey. I’ll be the white guy with the beard.

Web and social

• X is now using our Tweets to train its AI. At the moment you can opt out, but let’s see how long that lasts.

• The MERL joined Bluesky and Joe Vaughn (Socials and Marketing Lead) has shared some initial insights on their move to the platform.

• The Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, has said that a TikTok style dynamism should be embraced in theatre, focusing on fast-paced storytelling.

• And speaking of fast-paced storytelling, The Globe was nominated for a Lovie award, as a finalist in the Viral Video category.

• A couple of weeks ago, The Tank Museum reached 1million YouTube subscribers - an incredible milestone. Here are some thoughts on that achievement from their Head of Marketing and Engagement, Nik Wyness.

• Here’s an interesting look at the Twitter mass-exodus and the Bluesky bubble.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Jonathan Talmi recently launched The Living Museum, which uses Claud AI to bring life to collections on the British Museum's database. You can ask the objects questions, and they'll answer them. It's a very interesting concept, one which has sparked a lot of conversation in the sector. What do you think of it?

• Unesco has warned that AI could rewrite Holocaust history.

• On the theme of 3D cultural heritage this 3D digitisation of the Endurance is quite impressive, using hundreds of images of the shipwreck taken at 3km below sea level. Ernest Shackleton's ship sank more than a century ago.

• Have you heard about The National Gallery's 200 Creators project? They're building a network of digital creators to help celebrate their 200th birthday this year.

Technology / digital news

• Australia will soon introduce legislation to ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. How that would work is anyone's guess and the pros and cons are a bit of a minefield - but it's probably better than burying our heads in the sand... maybe.

• Russia has fined Google more money than there is in the entire world (two undecillion roubles). Some real Dr. Evil shit. In other news, this is the first time I've heard of the number 'undecillion'.

• A number of cultural heritage organisations have uploaded their 3D content to Sketchfab over the years and Epic Gams (current owners of Sketchfab) have recently announced that they'll be migrating Sketchfab to Fab, which seems to be more about creating assets for video games and is moving away from their original ideals around supporting the preservation of 3D cultural heritage. Here are some thoughts on the changes from ex-Sketchfab employee, Thomas Flynn.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• My colleague, Stephen Miller, has written an excellent article for Arts Professional on the AI revolution in the cultural sector. In it, he answers a number of the most common questions that he's asked about AI.

Off-piste

• The Onion recently purchased Alex Jones’ Infowars and they’ve announced that they plan to turn it into a satire site. But, much like any weed, I’m sure Alex Jones will pop up somewhere else in no-time.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: Late to the party, but the other half and I have just started watching Rings of Power. I find a couple of the characters relentlessly annoying (but I think that I’m supposed to?). But, in general, I’m very much enjoying it.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 103 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. As promised, the title image of this month's issue is a picture from near the top of Cadair Idris. I say near because it was beautifully clear the whole way up and then, about 50 meters from the summit, a bloody cloud rolled over and we couldn't see a thing. I did make friends with a sheep at the peak, though, so not all was lost. Overall, 10/10 would hike again. We also found Eryri National Park's secret waterfall - but it's important for the locals that the location remains a secret, so I won't be sharing pictures. You can give it a Google if I've caught your interest, though, and it isn't too hard to find with the right gear.

Out of nature and back into digital - a lot has happened since last month's issue and it's all below.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• The Museums Computer Group's conference tickets are still on sale and we’d love to see you there.

• It was great to hear the National Library of Scotland get a mention on one of my favourite podcasts (After Dark), in their recent episode on Burke and Hare.

• Here's an interesting look at how Friday afternoon email etiquette can help to cut weekend workloads.

Web and social

• The Royal Armouries have been producing some cracking social content of late. I've loved their 'Gen Z writes the script' series, which has been popping up all over the place, like Reddit and Twitter (X) and they've recently done their own excellent take on the 'get ready with me' trend.

• Meet Olivia Swarthout, the person behind 'Weird Medieval Guys' on Twitter (X).

• Adam Koszary (once editor of this very newsletter) has started his own newsletter series called 'Content of the Week', where he shares a couple of interesting examples of content that he's found from the sector alongside his thoughts. Great stuff.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• The Tank Museum was recently recruiting for a YouTube Strategist, with their marketing / engagement team growing thanks to their success in the Creator Economy. Very interesting move and I can't say that I've heard of many YouTube strategists in the sector. Unsurprising, though, as it'll be a great way for them to build on their YouTube success.

• Here's another insightful update from Trish Thomas (Head of Digital Innovation at London Museum). This one focuses on long tail SEO strategy.

• The Museum Data Service has launched and it will ‘revolutionise access to the UK’s cultural heritage’.

Technology / digital news

• The internet has now replaced TV as the UK's most popular news source, for the first time. Surprised that it's taken this long, to be honest.

• Cristiano Ronaldo (he does the football) has become the first person to reach one billion social media followers, totalled across his various platforms. How many of those people are duplicates and bots, who knows - but he seems happy about it at least.

• Google has now introduced video search through the Google Lens app. I.e. if you spotted a bird you couldn't identify on a walk and you could grab a video of it, using the Google Lens app you can use that video to search Google for the answer.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• Oonagh Murphy has published '10 ideas for purpose-driven digital leadership in museums'. It's incredibly useful and it's relevant for other sector leaders (or aspiring leaders) too.

• Elizabeth Llabres (Collections Manager at Bradford Museums & Galleries) put me on to the Balboa Park Online Collaborative, which is a non-profit collaboration who run interesting talks and webinars around different aspects of digital in the sector. This one on AI was particularly good.

• Entries for the 2025 Digital Culture Awards are open, closing on Wednesday 23 October. There's still time to submit something to the awards across a number of categories.

Off-piste

• ‘Keep Your Notes App Under Lock and Key’ - interesting think piece into why your collection of throwaway thoughts could become a record of your true self.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I rewatched Cabin in the Woods last night, seeing as spooky season is pretty much upon us. Bloody love that film and it’s a really interesting take on the classic teen-horror movie tropes. We also watched Civil War, which we really enjoyed. It’s set in a not-so-distant future where America is in the midst of a civil war. The interesting take is that you follow a team of war journalists as they travel to the capital, documenting the horrors that they see on the way, in the hopes of securing an interview with the President in his final hours.

🎮 Playing: I’m still playing Baulder’s Gate 3, but a friend recommended that I check out Octopath Traveller, which is a JRPG with really cool 2D / 3D graphics. So I might be talking about that next time.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 102 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I’m off to Wales this week to hike around Eryri National Park, find a secret waterfall and climb Cader Idris. I’ll try to get some photos if the weather’s good and I’ll share a couple in the next issue. Because who doesn’t like shots of nature?

I used Microsoft’s AI image generator (Microsoft Designer) to create today’s newsletter header image. Do you like it? The prompt was ‘Digital Things’. My personal favourite is the tablet device, top right, with part of a watch strap. In digital news, digital things happened. Find out about those things below.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• The Museums Computer Group's conference tickets are now on sale and the focus this year is digital audiences. Our very own Anra Kennedy will be speaking at the conference in Birmingham focusing on digital storytelling, who it's really for, and why.

• Last month Disney lawyers attempted to argue that the Disney+ terms of service would prevent an allergy death lawsuit. Thankfully they withdrew the claim after the severe backlash, but the fact that they tried it in the first place is concerning.

Web and social

• X has been banned in Brazil, with many users flocking to Bluesky as an alternative to the platform. Apparently the platform grew by 2.6 million users, with 85% of them coming from Brazil. A potential insight into where audiences may flock should a mass eXodus occur.

• The brat vs demure trend was pretty big on socials last month and Southbank Centre made a great classical version which went down really well with online audiences. Daniel Alicandro, their Head of Digital Engagement, wrote a great short overview of its success.

• Whilst we're on social trends, the Beamish Museum has had great success with the 'script written by our Gen Z social manager' trend. Currently sitting on 5.4million views. #slay

• The Museum of English Rural Life is back at it on X.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• This is a great article by Rob Cawston, Director of Digital and Service Transformation at the National Library of Scotland, focusing on how they are approaching AI.

• What is the museum of the future? This is a great look at the National Gallery's digital strategy through a great interview with John Stack, Director of Digital Innovation and Technology.

Technology / digital news

• ‘Labor’s plan to ban children from social media might actually create more harm, charity says’. Read the article on The Guardian.

• The internet has replaced television as the UK’s most popular source of news for the first time ever. Surprised it’s taken this long, but an interesting trend nonetheless.

• OpenAI is taking an interesting new approach to ChatGPT - trying to make it seem more human.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The European Theatre Lab is Europe's first think tank devoted to researching a digital strategy for theatre. They've got lots of tools and resources and they run OpenLabs and conferences - worth checking out.

• Art Council England has launched a new fully digital export licensing system, which offers a new digital portal to apply for and issue export licences for works of art/objects. I’m sure that this is the sort of exciting news that you subscribe to my newsletter for.

• I've been following Emma Keith's week notes for the past couple of months. Emma works as the Director of Digital at the National Theatre and she has been sharing insights and experiences through her weekly updates on Substack. Well worth following! Emma was inspired by Neil Williams who is the Executive Director of Technology and Digital Transformation at the BFI and has been doing week notes since last year.

Off-piste

• Only slightly off-piste, but this is an interesting short interview with TikTok personality Francis Bourgeois, known for his passionate trainspotting.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I recently started watching The War of the Worlds TV series, which ended a couple of years ago. It has a rating of 6.5 on IMDB, but that feels a little harsh from what I’ve watched so far. I’m four episodes in, so I guess with three seasons there’s plenty of time for it to fall off of a cliff and earn that 6.5 rating! So far I’d give it a solid 7.5. I also finished the last season of The Umbrella Academy, which was incredibly disappointing. It felt rushed, confused and the characters were reduced to idiotic versions of themselves with un-funny one liners. I don’t blame the actors as it feels like they didn’t have much to work with. I started re-watching Season 1 after I’d finished the series and it really struck home how hard they’d butchered that show in the last two seasons.

🎧 Listening to: I’m enjoying a bit of Paramore at the moment, big fan of The Only Exception and Brick by Boring Brick.

🎮 Playing: I’m still playing Baulder’s Gate 3 with my other half and we’re still loving it. We’ve completed about 30% of the game and we’ve played a grand total of 36 hours so far. I have a feeling we won’t be finishing it any time soon, but it’s a great play for a couple that enjoy gaming together.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 101 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I'm slowly melting at my keyboard on the hottest day of the year (so far), so apologies if my brain slowly turns into a puddle as I put this month's issue together.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• Quite enjoyed this comparison of One Direction’s Liam Payne as David Brent (BTW there’s a couple swears).

• This clip from Rainn Wilson’s interview with Bryan Cranston, on his podcast ‘Soul Boom’, is great. They do a little acting exercise with little dialogue and a couple of prompts.

Web and social

• This is an interesting news story about Essex County Council's £500,000 spend on social media campaigns during the pandemic. In once instance, £15,000 was spent on a single Facebook page with fewer than 200 followers. It's an interesting (worst case) case study at the ROI of Facebook spend and the value of social content for audiences and organisations.

• I don't know if you were keeping up with it but there were some great viral moments from the Olympics this year, from 'the muffin man' to Australia's... interesting break dancing competitor.

• London Museum (recently rebranded from the Museum of London) has produced a blog post outlining what's new about their website.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Trish Thomas, Head of Digital Innovation at London Museum, (still getting used to the rebrand!) wrote a great summary of their work with AI and how it connects to their new website and their collections.

• GLAM-E Lab is a 'joint initiative between the Centre for Science, Culture and the Law at the University of Exeter and the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU Law' and it aims to develop model policies and terms for cultural institutions that are creating open access programs.

Technology / digital news

• Last month, a good chunk of the world's digital infrastructure ground to a halt due to a mass Windows IT outage caused by a fault within the CrowdStrike cybersecurity software. An uncomfortable reminder of the fragility of digital within society.

• Google has announced a U-turn over their plan to ditch cookies. What that means in practice, I'm not so sure. But I do know that the UK's data privacy watchdog was disappointed by the decision, so watch this space.

• Here's how people are actually using AI - is about how some people are starting to rely fairly heavily on AI systems.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• Towards a National Collection (TaNC) has published user research into researchers' needs and requirements around digital collections infrastructure. Very useful stuff (but do remember that other audiences will have other needs/interests!).

• The latest issues of Cultural Content is all about digital leadership. Lots of useful stuff in there.

• On the theme of Digital Leadership, we (The Audience Agency) have an excellent resource developed through a NLHF programme, supporting heritage leaders with their digital literacy.

Off-piste

• I wouldn't say that this is necessarily good, but it is at least interesting and it's slightly left-field. But here's an article looking at the rise and decline of Cameo (the app where you pay famouses to record you a message).

What I’m…

📺 Watching: We’ve just finished Season 3 of The Bear, which was very good. I did feel that the final episode was a little lacklustre though, in that it felt a little too cliffhangerey for my liking. Would still very much recommend it though, particularly for Richie’s journey.

🎧 Listening to: Recently went back to Djo, the music from Stranger Things’ Joe Keerey. It’s very Tame Impala, maybe with a little Harry Styles mixed in. I’d recommend End of Beginning (you’ll have likely heard it on TikTok), Runner and Chateau.

🎮 Playing: I’ve started playing Baulder’s Gate 3 with my other half and we’re loving it. It’s basically a video game version of Dungeons and Dragons, so not quite as much freedom as playing actual DnD, but as close as you’ll get with a triple A video game. You can play couch co-op, so we’ve been playing it together with our respective characters. It’s brilliant so far and it’s been a really nice game to play together.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 100 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I can’t believe that I’ve published one hundred issues of this newsletter. I wanted to write something heartfelt and a little bit soppy but then I remembered… who gives a shit? So instead of doing a big song and dance I’ll just say thanks again for being here ❤️.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me, more frequently with more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• A couple of weeks back I joined our Director of Evidence & Insight, Oliver Mantell, for one of our TEA Break events focusing on 'Reviews & Recommendations'. Oliver unpacked our latest research into audience trends around where people find trusted sources of information and inspiration for things to do. I provided some thoughts and context to the research, with a particular focus on digital audience behaviours. I've shared some of those insights links below and you can watch the full recording on our YouTube channel.

• This is a little old, but still good. In 2023, May Naidoo set out to visit all 43 artworks featured in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons video game, in real life.

Web and social

• Here's a great interview with the Royal Institution's Steven Franklin, focusing on their data driven approach to social media.

• If you're still using Twitter, you might have noticed that analytics have been locked behind the paid account. Just in case you needed another reason to abandon the platform and be done with it.

• Here's a great overview of how the general election played out on TikTok.

• As part of the TEA Break session (mentioned at the top) I shared a link to changing audience behaviours around search. Younger people are relying more heavily on social media platforms, particularly TikTok, for search (vs the more standard search engines like Google).

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• A museum partnership in New York Citay is inviting visitors to take home fragments of digital artworks.

• The Content Mavericks podcast has a great interview with the Comms Director at Opera Rara, who have been having great success with their content on YouTube.

• Here's a link to an email thread with people having in-depth discussion on QR code usage within the sector, with a number of responders sharing data/insights on how QR codes are used within their organisations.

• Playbrary is a fantastic concept, using AI to turn over one thousand popular books into choose your own adventure style stories. It's by the National Library Board of Singapore and LePub and it's great fun. H/T to Chris Unitt for sharing in his Cultural Digital newsletter.

• The BBC had a live-streaming set up at every election count in the UK. This is useful look at the kit they used and how they did it.

Technology / digital news

• Relatively recently, OpenAI and Apple have announced a partnership to integrate ChatGPT into Apple devices. This is a pretty big deal, making AI tools significantly more accessible for a much broader audience. Whether it's a good thing or not, I'm not quite so sure.

• Google is adding Augmented Reality content to Google Maps in Paris and Singapore. Expect it to be rolled out to other locations soon.

• This is a little more information about Google's experimentation with AI within search. It mostly suggests that the search engine will likely look to keep people within its walled garden, using AI to generate answers to searches rather than linking out to other sites. This is a great look at why that might not be a good thing.

• Tech Crunch has been publishing an inspiring series, highlighting women working in the field of AI.

• Way back in 2021 I shared a story about Japan's efforts to remove the use of floppy disks in government. They have only just announced that the project has been a success.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• If you struggle with image prompting, (creating AI generated images using written prompts), this useful tool from Google Arts & Culture will help you to develop that skill. Definitely distracting, but also useful.

• In case you didn't know, Hotjar offers a free lifetime Ask Business plan for approved non-profits. That could be you! H/T to Shakespeare Globe's Matthew Hodson for bringing it to my attention.

Off-piste

• Everything is a game these days. I guess they assume we won't do it if it isn't fun. Here's a look at how gamification has taken over the world.

• I'm a big fan of the online bank Monzo, particularly for travelling abroad (this is not a paid plug, but I'm here if they're reading). They recently published their writing principles, which is pretty much a tone of voice document. It's long, but well worth a read to get an idea of their successful approach. H/T to Adam Koszary for sharing on LinkedIn.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I’ve watched a lot over the last few months since the last issue. It includes: Jurassic World: Dominion (it’s less then OK); The Boys: Season 4 (it’s pretty good); Invincible: Season 2 (it’s very good); Task Master (I’m loving it).

🎮 Playing: I’ve started playing the Elden Ring DLC (Shadow of the Erdtree). I was worried that it wouldn’t be the same experience as playing the base game, mostly because I hadn’t played it for quite a while. But I got back into the swing of it pretty quickly and I’m loving it so far. Sure, I still die every five seconds - but those occasional dopamine hits from the wins, whilst few and far between, make it alllll worth it.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 99 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. So close to a century of newsletters, which is pretty crazy.

There was some incredibly sad news in the sector last month, with the passing of Mar Dixon. Mar was a real pioneer of social media in the museum sector and she helped countless people to build their skills and confidence in engaging audiences online. Mar gave me a lot of advice when I first started out in the sector and she'll be sorely missed.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me with some more in-depth insights).

Subscribe now

Something good

• Putting to one side my thoughts and opinions on Elon Musk and my concern for his plans with Neuralink, it's pretty cool that a Neuralink patient has been able to play virtual chess using the brain implant.

Web and social

• Threads started live testing its API last month, which will allow for content scheduling in some third party apps. They plan to fully launch the API in June.

• TikTok is testing a new photo sharing app which will aim to rival Instagram.

• This is an interesting clip of an interview with TikTok creator Garron Noone, giving advice around short form content creation.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• This is an interesting interview with Martin Poulter, Wikimedian in Residence at the Khalili Foundation, about how GLAM organisations can utilise Wikipedia to reach audiences.

• Can we get real about the value of digital? Find out about our cohort of 40 people exploring the value of digital work within their organisations.

• Here's a picture of the ruins of Whitby Abbey being completed using drone lighting.

Technology / digital news

• 'Let's not make the same mistakes with AI that we made with social media'. This is a really interesting article looking at how we can apply lessons learned from social media's unregulated evolution to the rise of AI.

• It will be the 10 year anniversary of the NFT (non-fungible token) this year. This article takes a look at how NFTs have changed over the years and what it means for the art sector.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• NEMO (Network of European Museum Organisations) has published three recommendations addressing the development and use of AI technology in museums. It's also relevant outside of the sector, of course.

• The British Library has published a paper sharing some of the lessons learned from their recent cyber-attack, in the hopes that it will help other organisations to plan and protect themselves in the future. It's well worth taking a look.

Off-piste

• I recently read this really interesting look at the state of culture in 2024. A word of warning, it's a draining read and it doesn't exactly leave you feeling inspired. But it's thought provoking and insightful nonetheless.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: We’re currently watching the new Fallout series on Amazon. I’m a huge fan of the game series, having played every Fallout game since Fallout 3 released in 2008. So I was hesitant going into it, worried that they’d do it a disservice. Those worries were misplaced, though, as they’ve done an excellent job of bringing the world to life in live action. 10/10 so far would definitely recommend, if you’ve played the series or not.

🎮 Playing: I’ve decided to pick Fallout 76 back up. I played it on release and wasn’t overly impressed, but apparently it’s changed a lot since then and the TV series has led to a resurgence in players. It’s no Fallout: New Vegas, but I’m enjoying it so far. I’m mostly sinking time into Diablo IV at present, with the other half. We played a lot of Minecraft Dungeons when that came out and we really enjoyed it. Diablo IV is kind of a natural step up in the dungeon crawling genre and we’re having a great time playing it. For Diablo purists, apparently it was pretty disappointing. But for new players like us, we’re having a blast.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 98 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. All sorts going on in digital news this month, mostly weird and wonderful. Like the Glasgow Wonka experience, which was almost entirely generated by AI and performed by unsuspecting actors. Or the fact that ChatGPT went a little of the rails. All good fun, sure it’s nothing to worry about.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me).

Subscribe now

Something good

• In 2003, Chile's channel 13 aired the original Star Wars trilogy on TV and expertly cut in a number of commercials for Cerveza Cristal beer. They wove the commercials into actual scenes, making it seem as though they were part of the film. Apparently George Lucas wasn't very happy.

Web and social

• If you've not checked out Georgina Brooke's Cultural Content newsletter, you really should. In a recent issue, Georgina has featured a guest post from Monterey Bay Aquarium covering their approach to platforms like Twitch, Discord, TikTok and Bluesky, since abandoning Twitter.

• The Royal Institution has just surpassed 100,000 Instagram followers. 85,000 of those joined in the last 5 months. Here's an interesting overview of how their Social Media Manager, Steven Franklin, has achieved it through a data led approach.

• The British Museum's Instagram has been flooded with comments calling for the return of its moai statue (the Easter Island statue). They've had to switch off comments on a number of posts because of it.

• Tate has hit 12.5 million social media followers across its various platforms - quite the achievement! Here's an insightful interview with their Senior social media manager, Nell Burnham, where he unpacks their approach to their platforms.

• The Sacramento History Museum is creating good content on TikTok, featuring their star volunteer Howard. Their generally feel-good approach seems to be winning over audiences.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• I'm always really interested to see examples of cultural organisations collaborating with different industries. This is an interesting example from GameSpot, a video game news / reviews site, collaborating with the Royal Armouries where their Keeper of Firearms & Artillery reacts to the realism of the guns in WW2 video game Hell Let Loose.

• In 2013 Laurie Anderson started working with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning, to develop a language model built on her late husband's (Lou Reed, Velvet Underground) writings. Anderson has developed a number of works using this model which will feature in an upcoming exhibition I’ll Be Your Mirror.

Technology / digital news

• You might have heard about the Glasgow Wonka experience. Ignoring the trauma of the actors and the awful experience for families - it's kind of funny. But, at its heart, it's a cautionary tale about using AI within the creative process. It's a great tool, sure. But AI needs to be used appropriately and responsibly within our work, with a level of digital literacy. Here's a great Thread diving into its misuse for the Wonka experience.

• ChatGPT went rogue the other week, replying to a number of users in gibberish.

• Thinking about digital publishing, it's interesting to see that BuzzFeed is still going through layoffs and restructuring. It seems as though the heyday of digital publishing may be over (at least in the way that BuzzFeed used to do it).

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The Sensational Museum project has created a Style Guide and a Glossary to help you create accessible online copy - super useful for your content creation!

• The Digital Learning Network (DLNet) is an informal network of people who share a common interest in how digital technologies can help people who work in the culture and heritage sectors to better engage with audiences. It's a great group of people and it's well worth joining the network, particularly if your role involves digital learning / engagement.

Off-piste

• This is an interesting look at Temu's approach to marketing - bludgeoning you into knowing its name.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: We’ve just started watching Shōgun on Disney. It’s a series following a few key players in a fictionalised version of real events taking place in 16th Century Japan. It’s really good so far, sitting at a very healthy 9.2 on IMDb. One of the main characters is a shipwrecked English sailor played by Cosmo Jarvis and if you’re watching it, one of his scenes in episode 3 gave me real ‘Democracy Manifest’ vibes.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 97 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. It's starting to feel like 2024 is in full swing after a never-ending January. As seems to be the case of late, tech news is still packed full of the latest trends around AI, but Augmented Reality has recently taken centre stage with the introduction of Appel's new Vision Pro headset*. I'd argue that AR's not been this hot since Pokémon Go.

There's some useful and interesting stuff in this issue and if you ever have anything you'd like to share, feel free to drop me a line (alec.ward@theaudienceagents.org).

* Technically the Vision Pro is a Virtual Reality headset because it records and streams what's in front of you in real-time to the in-built screen and then overlays additional content onto that recording. Little bit of knowledge to impress your friends and family at your next gathering, you're welcome.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me).

Subscribe now

Something good

• Always love me some Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Web and social

• I'm really enjoying Milwaukee Public Library's Instagram content. It's creative, it's people first and it speaks to the audience on the platform.

• The Association of Cultural Enterprises has produced a thoughtful post explaining their rationale behind their decision to leave Twitter (X). Their decision is based on 'changes at X that have significantly impacted user safety, content visibility, and overall alignment with our organisational values'.

• We Are Social has published their 2024 global digital report. Lots of interesting findings in there, from an uptick in TV viewing time, to a steady increase in the number of social media users (to 5.04 billion). Well worth a look over.

• The Metro Newspaper landed on an interesting term to describe the UK's recent weather challenges. The Met Office's reply on Twitter was very good Steven Franklin, Social Media Manager at the Royal Academy, has shared some insights into what made it so good.  

• Language is exploding on TikTok, with creators trying their hardest to create viral slang. It's really interesting to see how language on the platform helps to create a sense of community, as well as how often it falls flat.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Kinetic Diffusion is an AI powered dance performance, using AI to replicate and recreate dance choreography in real time.

• University of Southampton students have applied an AI algorithm to thousands of images of the HMS Victory, in an attempt to improve their quality and aid in its restoration.

• This is an interesting look at the rise of immersive institutions (or digital art venues). Outernet recently announced that it recorded 6.25 million visitors in its first year, becoming one of Britain's most popular visitor attractions... despite how much I dislike the name.

• The BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit has partnered with Minecraft Education to create a Planet Earth III Minecraft experience.

Technology / digital news

• Australia is likely to ask tech companies to label content generated by AI platforms and Meta has announced that they're increasing labelling of AI generated imagery across their social platforms. One to keep an eye on, particularly if you're using (or thinking about using) AI in content creation.

• The Apple Vision Pro is the hottest piece of tech to come out this year. Here's a good look at how the art world is starting to get to grips with the tech. Is it going to change the world? Maybe. People laughed at the Apple Watch and look at us now. Augmented Reality has been slow to take off, but it's always worth keeping an eye on these sorts of trends when thinking about the future of digital experiences in your organisation.

• If you fancy joining me in feeling old, Facebook has turned 20. It's undeniable that the platform has changed the world, arguably for the worse but maybe I'm just salty because it bulldozed the far superior (IMHO) MySpace.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The Catalyst has published a number of interesting articles looking at digital funding. The articles were produced from several interviews with key (unnamed) funders. Check out 'How grantmakers view digital funding in 2024' and 'How funders assess applications for digital funding'.

Off-piste

• Apparently, we’ve forgotten how to use computers.

• TV is in crisis. Though I kind of feel like TV has been in crisis for a long time now.

What I’m…

📺 Watching: I finished The Traitors and we decided to go back and watch the first season, which was also excellent. It was really interesting watching Will’s desperation in the final episodes of the first season, as he realised that the walls made of his lies were closing in on him. I’ve definitely not got the gumption to be a Traitor, I’m 100% Faithful. We also watched the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film and the new Wonka film. Truthfully I was sceptical of both films going in. I thought that TMNT would end up being a half-arsed Spider-Verse rip-off and I thought the trailer for Wonka looked pretty uninspiring. But truth be told, they’re both excellent films. TMNT was full of energy and laughs and the chemistry of the voice actors was excellent. Wonka was just a really heart-warming film to watch. It was fun, weird and had a whole host of some of my favourite indie British actors like Paterson Joseph (Peep Show), Mathew Baynton (all sorts), and Charlotte Ritchie (Fresh Meat & Ghosts). Overall 10/10 would watch it all again.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 96 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I hope that you all enjoyed the Christmas break! Feels slightly strange saying happy new year this late in January, but here we are. I spent my time off chasing after our toddler, who was in a perpetual state of chocolate and present induced mania. Fingers crossed that yours was a little more restful.  

We've extended the deadline for Let's Get Real to February 1st, to give you all a little extra time to get applications in after the Christmas break. We've already got some excellent organisations signed up and we'd love to have you along too. You can find out more and sign up on our website. If you want to have a chat about the programme, you can drop me a line: alec.ward@theaudienceagency.org.

Don’t forget to check out and subscribe to The Digital Snapshot (also free, also put together by me).

Subscribe now

Something good

• "We need Jungle, I'm afraid". You might have seen the clip from University Challenge, where Aberdeen incorrectly answered 'Drum & Bass' to a question about Jungle. Twitter user Nathan Filer asked people to remix it, and the results do not disappoint.

• Someone created the James Blunt Museum in a phone box in Herefordshire and the local reaction is exactly what you'd expect it to be.

Web and social

• Last summer, Reddit users protested against proposed changes to the platform. This is an interesting look at the changes that have happened to the platform since and how user attitudes have evolved.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• If you've been watching 'Digging for Britain' (and even if you haven't) you can explore the Roman cellar dig site, found last year at Leicester Cathedral in 3D with annotations.

• Here's some more information about the British Library's recent cyber attack. Before Christmas, their chief executive, Roly Keating, outlined the extent of the damage.

• Artists have started trialling 'data poisoning' as a technical solution to AI models scraping the internet for data that can be used for text-to-image generation. Here's an article from The Art Newspaper on how Midjourney's AI allegedly used more than 16,000 non-consenting artists to train the model.

• A new newsletter from Thomas Flynn shares the latest news and developments in heritage and digital 3D. The most recent issue covers everything from documenting heritage during conflict, to interactive games.

Technology / digital news

• It's the season of CES. The expo is always packed with weird and wonderful tech and whilst I'd suggest taking it all with a handful of salt, it's always good to look at the highlights and keep an eye on the sort of tech that's coming over the horizon.

• Here are Blooloop's top 13 trends to watch in the visitor attractions industry this year. Their top pick is gamification, but they also take a look at immersive tech, robots, ethics and more. Heads up, it's not just tech and it's a long read. But it's better than catching up on all those emails!

• Google has admitted that its AI viral video was edited to look better. The video was created to showcase the capabilities of their AI model and, unsurprisingly, it's a little too good to be true. It reminds me of Xbox's much maligned Project Milo.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• Bloomberg Philanthropies' Digital Accelerator programme is now open. The programme aims to support nonprofit cultural organizations through investments in their digital infrastructure. Find out more on their website.

Off-piste

• I'm undecided if this is a good thing or not, so I'll let you be the judge. Warner Brothers is creating 25 second TikTok episode recaps of Sopranos, to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary.

What I’m…

🎮 Playing: I’ve not really had a chance to play anything new of late, but I am looking at Palworld. It’s a Pokémon-esque, open-world online survival crafting game and it has really taken off the last week or so (selling 5 million copies in 3 days). Imagine a cross between Pokémon and Ark: Survival Evolved. It’s an interesting concept and, as it’s on Game Pass, it’s worth picking up!

📺 Watching: We’ve been watching The Traitors on the BBC. Really enjoying the show so far, though getting rid of Diane was a poor choice IMO. I think that it’s kicked off the Traitors downfall. We’ve also been watching Gladiators, which is fantastic. Lots of nostalgia from the OG series, but plenty to freshen it up for a modern audience. It feels strange to be watching two BBC shows as they’re aired on the telly - it’s like being back in the 90s/00s.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 95 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. I hope that you’re geared up for some festive fun and relaxation this festive break!

In some personal news, I’m starting a new role at The Audience Agency (TAA). You might have seen that Culture24 recently merged with TAA, which is super exciting. It also means that I’ll be taking stewardship of their incredibly popular digital newsletter, the ‘Digital Snapshot’.

I’m really looking forward to taking over the newsletter and putting my own stamp on it. But it means that I’m going to have to re-think Digital Things. With a little one taking up most of my spare time as it is, I can’t see how I’d find the space to create two meaningful newsletters for the sector on digital that weren’t mostly duplicating one-another.

I’m going to have a good think about how best to manage it and see how I could keep Digital Things active, meaningful, and unique but in the meantime I’ll mostly be using this newsletter to sign-post over to the Snapshot. After this issue, Digital Things will become a shorter version of the Snapshot, so if you’d like to continue receiving digital news from me in full, why not subscribe to the Digital Snapshot? It’s also free and I promise to only occasionally over-share about my personal life.

Subscribe to the Digital Snapshot

Something good

• We’ve launched sign up for the next Let’s Get Real! This one is focusing on how we understand the value of our digital work. It’s going to be a really exciting topic and we’d love to have a range of cultural organisations taking part. Find out more on our website.

• This clip from the making of the Robocop documentary feels like a skit from ‘I Think You Should Leave’. Warning there’s a couple swears.

Web and social

• ‘What Happens When AI Plans Your Entire Social Strategy?’. An interesting experiment from Hootsuite.

• Pinterest has compiled user data and behaviours to predict trends for next year. As lots of people use Pinterest to plan their future activities and projects, it makes sense that they've got a wealth of data predicting people's interests.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• Europeana’s CRAFTED project has won both a Bronze and People’s Lovie Award. The project ‘aimed to support the transfer of European crafts to future generations by aggregating, enriching and promoting tangible crafts heritage and preserving intangible skills and knowledge from craftsmen and artisans’.

• Headsets that show the effects of art on the brain are to be toured at UK galleries as part of an Art Fund initiative. The devices will visualise people’s brainwaves on screens in real-time 3D.

• A collaboration between Wiltshire Museum, Poole Museum, Dorset Museum & Art Gallery, and The Salisbury Museum has resulted in the launch of the Wessex Museums Virtual Collection, offering a searchable database featuring over 250,000 artefacts and 30,000 images. They worked with The Museum Platform and Knowledge Integration and the database was designed using the same digital infrastructure as the Museum Data Service.

• The V&A’s new Mused platform is interesting, serving all sorts of content types around their themes and collections. You might have seen their recent quiz getting you to pick between a collection image and one generated by AI (it’s quite tough). Kati Price, Head of Experience and Digital at the V&A, has shared some interesting audience insights related to that quiz.

Technology / digital news

• Here’s an interesting look at the use of AI by students in school.

• The National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) has commissioned a snapshot of what innovation in AI looks like across the UK heritage sector. A survey conducted by the NLHF in June highlighted that 24% of respondents were using AI, but that 65% had not considered how they might use it in the future. If you've not started those discussions in your organisation, this might be a good link to share to get the ball rolling.

• Interesting discussion on the MCG list the other day about policies around using AI in the workplace. Liz McCarthy, University of Oxford, shared some interesting links:

  • University of Cambridge’s communications guidelines for using AI tools

  • The BBC’s plans on generative AI

  • Gov UK’s guidance to civil servants on using generative AI

    Wired’s generative AI policy.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• The Digital Culture Compass now has a new feature called Wayfinders. The toolkit enables cultural organisations to assess and unpack their digital maturity across a number of relevant activity areas. The Wayfinders give you a quick and easy snapshot of your digital maturity, in a lighter touch way than the full Tracker. I’ve taken loads of organisations through the toolkit over the years and the Wayfinders are a really exciting and accessible addition. If you want to know more (or you’d like some guidance and facilitation on using the toolkit) get in touch!

• All In is a new UK-wide access scheme for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people with an ambition to create a new digital system that enables people with access requirements to securely store and share their personal data with participating organisations. Sounds like a great initiative and you can find out more on their website.

• This is a really useful guide for small charities / organisations around cyber security, from the National Cyber Security Centre. And Charity Digital has launched an AI checklist for trustees.

• And whilst we’re still talking about AI, the National Lottery Heritage Fund has created a snapshot of what innovation in AI looks like across the UK heritage sector, with a focus on leaders.

Off-piste

• Here’s an AI meme. People have been using generative AI to re-edit images, each time asking it to ‘Make it more’. I.e. they ask it to create a picture of a spicy curry, each time feeding the image it makes back into the programme and asking it to ‘make it more spicy’.

What I’m…

🎮 Playing: I’ve replayed Dead Space. They remastered the game a little while back and they’ve recently added it to Xbox Game Pass. Dead Space is in my top-five games, so I was really excited to replay it with better graphics and improved performance. It was fantastic, as much fun as I remembered and just as scary. They’ve added a little bit more content, like some optional side-missions, but in general it stays true to the original. If you like horror games, Dead Space is for you (and I’d be surprised if you’ve not already played it).

📺 Watching: We’ve finished watching Fall of the House of Usher, from the makers of Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass (one of my favourite shows of all time). It was really well done, if a bit gory. It has an air of Knives Out coupled with the horror of their original shows - so a right bit of me. All in all, as long as you’re not too squeamish, I’d certainly recommend.

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now

Welcome to issue 94 of Digital Things, by Alec Ward. Hope you’re managing to enjoy this British autumn. If you’ve been caught up in all of the floods, I hope that you and yours are ok.

There were a few interesting digital things coming out over the last month or so, which I’ve shared below. Also a couple of things that have left me feeling a little uneasy, like Meta creating AI personas (link in the Technology / Digital News section). I don’t like to be too alarmist about these sorts of things, but I do worry that society is sleep-walking towards something quite damaging. I’m not necessarily talking about a Skynet scenario. More about the damage it’s going to cause to society and our young people.

I’m sure there’ll be a lot of good as well, though. But I hope that governments and regulators have learnt a lesson from constantly playing catch-up with the social media giants.

Subscribe now

Something good

• The MCG has announced the programme for Museums+Tech 2023. Grab your tickets!

• There’s also a new digital culture conference coming to town next year, from Digital Works (by Substrakt). Substrakt have been creating some excellent content through Digital Works for coming on a decade now, so the step into conferencing is a logical one. It’ll be a great chance to see talks and hear about projects from across the spectrum of digital arts and culture.

• Peak academic publishing.

Web and social

• Traffic from Twitter and Facebook to the top new sites has crashed in recent years. Elon replied that Twitter apparently discourages links because they want to optimise time spent on the platform, therefore you should post content as long-form on the platform.

• And following that, Twitter will now only display an image and the URL associated to any link you share - so no more article headings. So it’s important now more than ever to make sure you’ve got good quality thumbnails on any page you’re sharing.

• This is a great issue of Cultural Content, giving a deep-dive on Facebook, Insta and Twitter.

Digital culture activities, experiences, projects

• The University of Glasgow is leading a £5.4 million ‘Museums in the Metaverse’ project to develop Virtual Reality museums.

• I gave a few thoughts to the The Arts Newspaper on the use of video games in the heritage sector, specifically by museums, for audience engagement.

• Great overview of the V&A’s ongoing digital transformation.

• Here’s a really interesting podcast episode from Art Sense, focusing on the recent Museums of Tomorrow Roundtable. (H/T to Jane Finnis for passing it on to me).

• A good look at 3D in the culture sector across Europe.

Technology / digital news

• Meta has created AI personas using a number of well known public figures (with their permission). They’ll be available to interact with through their various platforms and Meta has said that we’ll be able to make our own personas in a year or so. Personally this can all get in the bin but maybe I’m just a curmudgeon who wants to speak to real people damnit.

• They’ve started releasing video footage of the inside of The Sphere in Las Vegas. It’s pretty epic, to be fair.

• Zoom is launching its own version of Google Docs to work alongside its video conferencing platform. It’ll use their AI tool to do fancy AI things which I’m sure will be flawless and certainly not annoying and ineffective.

• Here’s an interesting use-case of using holograms to change the traditional zoo experience. Wouldn’t be too surprised to see this kind of technology in action in more museums in the future.

Resources, reports, development opportunities

• Really useful issue of Cultural Content, focusing on SEO for content editors.

• Google's new smartphones are using AI to help alter people's expressions in photographs. More ethical dilemmas for AI in everyday use.

Off-piste

• TikTok is trying to muscle in on the gaming industry. Here’s an interesting look at what their sponsorship of EGX (the UK’s biggest video game show) might mean for the industry).

• Here’s an interesting thought piece on how the internet could be good.

What I’m…

🎮 Playing: Another new game, I know, I’m spoiling myself. I decided to pick up the Blood Bowl 3 video game. It’s based on the table-top, which I’ve spoken about before, but it’s brought to life with engaging animations and commentary. The game is far, far, far… far from perfect. But I’m still enjoying it. It’s a great way to learn the game, if you’re interested in getting into it. It’s very buggy (though it’s getting better) and I’d imagine it has a steep learning curve for new players. At the moment, I’d give it a solid 6.5/10.

📺 Watching: We’re currently on to season 2 of Welcome to Wrexham. I enjoy the show because A) I love football and B) the show doesn’t just focus on football, it’s far more about community and people. We also finally finished Lost. I had some trepidation going into the final season as I remember people shitting on the last episode when it first came out. But personally I though that it was a nice wrap-up for the show. It was a little out there, made you think and contemplate a little… what more could you ask for?

Did you like this issue of the Digital Things newsletter? YES | NO

As always if you like this newsletter and want to tell other people about it, you can forward on the email or you can share the Digital Things homepage.

If you've got something you want to shout about, like a great project, a new website, funding, training, events, whatever - let me know and if I have space I'll add it in (for free): digitalthingsnews@gmail.com.

Subscribe now