Those aren’t really viral dances – they’re witty and very smart social media moves for established performers. To quote a CEO, “Dance sells.” – BBC
Blog
Watch Out, Pinterest: Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ Is About To Enter Public Domain
The Prophet, and a lot of other work, is public domain on January 1. Sure, the estates are going to lose money. (But honestly, who cares? This is great for readers.) – The New York Times
Netflix Churns Through Its Data To Create And Deliver Movies Like ‘Bird Box’
Truly, the movie isn’t that great. But it’s a great example of how Netflix uses all of that data we give it when we start, stop, walk away, return, and finish (or don’t) movies and TV shows. – Slate
Survey: Who’s Swayed By Social Media Influencers?
The survey of more than 1,000 shoppers was carried out for Radio 4’s You and Yours by consumer analysts Savvy Marketing. It found that 54% of 18-to-34-year-old beauty buyers were influenced by their suggestions. – BBC
A New Chapter On Restitution Of Plundered Art
All eyes are now on France. Despite the legal hurdles, restitutions are possible but only through a drawn-out process. President Macron’s decision earlier this month to return 26 plundered items to Benin “without delay” will have to be approved by parliament. Similarly, when the Muséum de Rouen discovered a “toi moko”—a tattooed head of an ancient Maori warrior—in its collection in 2011, restitution to New Zealand had to be approved by a special act of parliament, which took four years. – The Art Newspaper
Our Fears As Expressed By The Lessons Of Other Cities
Our deepest anxieties about the future of where we live are embodied in other cities — in Portlandification, Brooklynification, Manhattanization. The comparison is seldom a compliment. You don’t want to become Manhattan (too dense), Portland (too twee), Boston (too expensive), Seattle (too tech-y), Houston (too sprawling), Los Angeles (too congested), Las Vegas (too speculative), Chicago (too indebted). – The New York Times
Live-streaming Games Is The New Media Frontier
From a critical remove, streaming is a strangely liminal space, one not yet secure in its place in the media landscape. It’s a land of opportunity and nonsense, a media format beyond its Wild West stage yet not quite formed into something that can be subjected to mainstream media analysis. Streaming is a place for big-time, multi-million-dollar celebrities. It’s also a place where marginalized people form communities around games and people they love, where niche gaming communities like speedrunning can grow healthily. – Wired
How San Antonio Got a Free Scholar’s Rock
One day in December, Katherine Luber, director of the San Antonio Museum of Art, two curators and a museum trustee wandered around a rock yard in China that looked more like a moonscape than a landscape –
Judith H. Dobrzynski
Fake Images Created By AI Are Getting So Good They’re Hard To Spot
The end result is similar to a trick often used in Hollywood. Superheroes, aliens, and the simians in Planet of the Apesmovies are animated by placing markers on actors’ faces and bodies so they can be tracked in 3-D by special cameras. – Wired
The BBC’s Film Critics Show On TV Goes Bust
The BBC has promised to replace Film with another show, but the challenge is how do you cover movies for a BBC One audience? The problem the BBC has is that movie broadcasting has been subject to a populist online revolution.