Cultural Digital newsletter

Hello

In this edition we have some articles about monetisation of digital content/experiences, social media musings, and some music-related bits and pieces.

San Francisco Symphony's new visual identity has been made to respond to music (explained here) and there's a web app to play with it too. It's called SYMPHOSIZER.

Financials
Can museums really make digital visits pay? "As venues experiment with selling virtual exhibition tours, talks and workshops online, the key to success may be an emphasis on the expert, bespoke and exclusive".

How the pandemic propelled online education for a world-class art foundation. On the Barnes Foundation's online learning programme which has "generated more than $650,000 since its launch last March—more than double the revenue in-person classes had generated in 2019".

Museums Are Selling Virtual Classes and Tours to Boost Revenue During the Pandemic. Here's What They've Learned About What Works. Referencing the Design Museum, The Met, and the Barnes Foundation (again).

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra announces second series of livestreamed symphonic concerts. There's a passing mention of the first series "in which almost 16,000 digital tickets were sold to households globally".

If this is up your street then take a look at the Insight Alliance's Culture Restart findings from the end of Feb. There's plenty of stuff on digital content and monetisation, with contributions from the BSO and the Lawrence Batley Theatre too.

Social media
Going viral, the right way: what it's like running the world’s best museum social media accounts during a pandemic. "We asked the people behind the Royal Academy’s Twitter, the Met’s Instagram, the Uffizi’s TikTok and the Van Gogh Museum’s Facebook account what 2020 was like for them".

For Arts' Sake — Abby Bird. There's some good stuff about museum social media, TikTok and engaging GenZ in this interview with Abby Bird from the Black Country Living Museum.

Social Media in Museums. Notes from a recent talk by Georgina Brooke with a little history, some mythbusting, and a bit about "the folk who have created great organic social media content that has made their museum relevant to a broader public".

Music
Live Streaming Music – Investigating the monetisation of live streams of musical performances in the wake of COVID-19. A research project that's just kicking off.

a classical dark academia playlist for art museum dates. A YouTube video featuring some classical music over some moody photos. It's amazing what a bit of repackaging around a subculture can do (1m+ views in this case).

Nokia Composer. Compose a ringtone.

Miscellaneous
MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia uses "deep learning technology to animate the faces in still family photos". You've probably seen this on. I'm really not sure how I feel about it. Of course, someone applied it to various portraits.

The open road to a digital platform. Danny Birchall at the Wellcome Collection talks through how they've delivered on their digital strategy.

Why we need a digital preservation strategy for UK museums. The Collections Trust is calling for "a sector-wide preservation strategy to improve the digital storage arrangements of many hundreds of museums and futureproof the benefits of short-term projects".

List of Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiatives in museums. This list (which is longer than I'd expected) has been compiled by Elena Villaespesa (Pratt Institute), Oonagh Murphy (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Kate Nadel (Pratt Institute). For more of this sort of thing check out themuseumsai.network

Digital Retro Park goes Game Boy! The museum in Offenbach, Germany is/will be available on a Game Boy cartridge.

I said I was going to mention NFTs in this one but I haven't. Maybe next time. Until then, please share anything you've found interesting with others, and look after yourselves.

Chris Unitt

Coach. Digital training for culture professionals.
Sessions coming up include Digital KPIs, Digital Ad Strategy, and Google Tag Manager basics.

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