Clive Thompson, who I usually really dig, has an unexpected (for me at least) take on Instagram. He likes it (which I also do), but specifically he thinks the filters encourage people to look at things with a more critical/artistic eye. Makes me think about a few things: 1) I think Thompson’s point is true of photography generally. When people have a camera they look at everything as a possible photo and that changes the way things look. 2) It makes me think of Daniel Kahneman’s research around remembering self versus experiencing self and how Instagram encourages optimization around memory instead of experience and 3) My favorite comment about Instagram was from someone (can’t remember whom), who said that the app makes everyone seem like they’re living in this weird depressed state. I agree.

With all that said, I do like Instagram … So take it all with a grain of salt.

Clive Thompson on the Instagram Effect | Magazine

behavioraleconomicsinstagramphotographypsychologyJanuary 9, 2012

Facebook apparently gets so many requests to take down photos because they’re unflattering that they’ve added an additional option for “I don’t like this photo of me.” It doesn’t actually get a photo taken down, rather it’s “designed to trigger compassion from the photo posters.” I’m not sure why I find this so interesting, but something about the basic humanity of being embarrassed by a photo and having to find a way to deal with that through software is very interesting. In some ways I’m surprised we don’t hear about lots more stuff like this from Facebook, after all with almost a billion people on the platform they surely run into “human problems” on a regular basis.

Facebook Won’t Take Down a Photo Just Because It Makes You Look Fat, But It Does Try to Guilt the Poster | Betabeat — News, gossip and intel from Silicon Alley 2.0.

culturefacebookidentityphotographyJanuary 5, 2012

The Atlantic has an amazing roundup of photos from 2011′s volcano eruptions.

The Year in Volcanic Activity - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic

naturephotographyvolcanosDecember 16, 2011

Hi, I'm Noah. I am the co-founder of Percolate. I like writing on, thinking about and making stuff for the internet. I'm responsible for a few internet experiments like Brand Tags, likemind and My First Tweet. On this site I write about media, marketing, culture, technology and randomness. I like it when people email me.

Subscribe to NoahBrier.com by RSS or by email (in once-a-day digest form).

The drip denotes a curated post from Percolate. The comment is mine, the content on the other end of the link is not.

Q: What is this site all about?
A: I think Michael Bierut explained it nicely a few years ago in response to people asking him why he didn't write more about design on Design Observer: "But the great thing about graphic design is that it is almost always about something else. Corporate law. Professional football. Art. Politics. Robert Wilson. And if I can't get excited about whatever that something else is, I really have trouble doing good work as a designer. To me, the conclusion is inescapable: the more things you're interested in, the better your work will be." Replace "graphic design" with "media/marketing/technology" (or whatever you'd like to call my field) and you've got my deal.

Q: Where else do you live?
A: Good question. All over the place as a matter of fact. On Tumblr for more randomness, Twitter for short bursts, Dopplr for places I'm going, Delicious for things I'm reading, last.fm for music I'm listening to, Flickr for photos I'm taking and Facebook because I don't really have a choice. (Oh, and Amazon for stuff I want people to buy me.)

Q: I meant that literally. Where do you live?
A: Oh, sorry, Brooklyn, New York is where I call home at the moment.

Q: Any other side projects you'd like to tell us about?
A: As a matter of fact, yes. There's How Much Does it Buy?, a calculator for the rest of us. Holy Crap! Facts (and accompanying Twitter feed) which is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Da' Bears Blog is, in my opinion, the best Chicago Bears blog on the web (I don't write it, I just helped it get off the ground) and Tweemail is a little PHP script I wrote for getting Twitter updates by email. I'm also always working on a few other things and will let you know when they're ready for public consumption.

Q: Um okay.
A: Yeah, that's a fake question mostly so I can throw in this one other quote I like that I think sums up some of what I try to do here. This one comes from Albert Einstein (or at least the internet says so) and goes something like, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Words to live by.

Q: What sites do you like?
A: Well that changes all the time. At the moment I've been digging clusterflock, Beyond the Beyond, Bobulate, Barking up the wrong tree and The Awl.