Hello and welcome to the Digital Snapshot, bringing you all the latest digital news, inspiration, tips and guidance for the arts, culture, museums and heritage world.
Afternoon. Hope I've caught you at a good time? I thought I'd open this issue with a slightly longer look at some recent tech news. Unsurprisingly, it's AI related. Google recently tested AI generated overviews for search results in the US last year and they're now testing it for select users in the UK.
It suggests a shift away from how search has traditionally performed - instead of giving users a list of potentially useful websites which might include different viewpoints on the subject, users will initially be greeted by a short AI generated answer to their question. This could pose a threat for publishers - will people scroll to your website which answers their question when they can get the short AI generated answer from Google? This is definitely one to keep an eye on, particularly if your content relies heavily on SEO'd pages answering likely search terms.
Latest news 📰
- 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. She'll be sorely missed.
- 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.
- 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.
Useful / shareable 🤓
- 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.
- This is an interesting clip of an interview with TikTok creator Garron Noone. He's making fantastic short content on the platform and he's growing a really strong audience. His advice in the clip is to try things out in quantity and then focus on quality once you know what your audience is interested in. Not bad advice (provided you have the time and space to try it).
- 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.
- 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 a thought provoking summary of how entertainment is changing and how much it relies on attention, distraction and in most cases addiction.
Distracting / entertaining / inspiring 💥
- 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. For other examples of this, Dutch artist duo DRIFT have been using the technology across Europe.
- '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.
Something good 👍
- Some of you may remember coming home from school, sitting at your home PC, listening to those familiar dial-up tones and jumping on the long-gone Neopets. Well, now you can re-live one quarter of that because Neopets is back! And you could re-live half of that if you fancied listening to some dial-up tones as white noise whilst you play.
- 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.
And that’s all for this edition.
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The Audience Agency
