Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Digital Snapshot, bringing you all the latest digital news, ideas, tips and guidance for the arts, culture, museums and heritage world.
Latest News
- The seemingly endless process of implementing the UK's Online Safety Bill trundles on, and has prompted an open letter from Whatsapp/Meta complaining about the planned governmental 'backdoor' to encrypted messages.
- Over the weekend Twitter removed verification ticks, and the only way to get one back is by paying for Twitter Blue. Or, if you're rich and famous, Elon Musk will pay for it. Or, if you have enough followers you'll get one for free - which has apparently been the case for some large Twitter accounts in the cultural sector. So, who knows what's going on, but for everyone else whether you stump up for a tick will depend on how you balance the benefits, reputational risk, ethics and financial cost.
- There's been some controversy over the official Paralympics TikTok account, which is run by a Paralympian and has been posting videos including a single-leg cyclist pedalling to a song just saying "LEFT...LEFT...LEFT". Is it leading people into discrimination, or normalising our differences?
Useful / bookmarkable
- The Collections Trust has published a new toolkit for managing digital collections. Collection Managers among you will be delighted to know that the contents table alone runs to four pages.
- A lot of people I talk to aren't sure where to start on digital accessibility - if you're one of those people then sign up to this webinar from the Digital Culture Network's Roberta Beattie for an introduction.
- Culture24's Alec Ward has written about their findings on hybrid working in the sector, "small changes, implemented through experimentation, can build up to help support significant change".
Distracting / entertaining / inspiring
- I love maps so I was already hooked at 'Ordnance Survey', but the interactivity, pacing and whizzy zooming in this article from The Economist on the mapping of Britain should hook anyone in. (I mean, probably still not anyone but it's more fun than a bog-standard article).
- I think ICOM wants us to procreate to their new podcast?
- It's the job of content people to unearth the urban myths and idiosyncrasies of where we work to find and share stories which we take for granted. This one by Kew Gardens about a fungus which turned out to be a golf ball feels like one of those stories.
Good Reads
- David Taylor asks: "Classical music audiences are vanishing… why aren’t we doing anything about it?" It's a good question for the arts and culture sector, and it boils down to: do we want to improve our product? Or do we improve our marketing? Or both?
And that’s all for this edition. If you come across any interesting or noteworthy content or have any of your own projects to share please send it my way.
Don't forget we're here to support you with training, research and consultancy, so please do get in touch.
You can find all past editions of the Digital Snapshot here.
You can find me or The Audience Agency on Twitter. See you soon.
Adam Koszary
Head of Digital, The Audience Agency
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In the Digital Snapshot, our Head of Digital Adam Koszary offers a comprehensive round-up of the latest news, innovation and interesting ideas in the world of digital, as relevant to the arts, culture, museums and heritage sectors.
