Issue 101: U-turn if you want cookies
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).
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.