Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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Top 10 of 09

Inspired by Alan Wolk (who was inspired by BBH Labs), here are my top ten posts of the year (at least by number of pageviews):

  1. Why Did Tropicana Redesign?: Yet another voice in the debate on Tropicana’s redesign (which was pulled off the shelf after the post). I argued the other side … That maybe it wasn’t so bad (minus the usability issue). I still stand by my generic point, but clearly the usability issues won out.
  2. Steve Eisman and Betting on Collapse: To be honest most of these top posts were because of Google (and who says that all traffic comes from Twitter?). The post is mostly a giant link to Michael Lewis’s portfolio piece from last year.
  3. T-Mobile Class Action Lawsuit: I think the title pretty much explains it.
  4. Abandoned Detroit: Pictures of Detroit’s decline.
  5. A Rant on Branding: With all the Pepsi/Tropicana excitement I needed to get out a full-on rant about why rebranding isn’t really that important (and why it’s really about a giant media buy).
  6. Rating Systems and Personal Rules: This post can be summed up in just a few words: Everyone has a different definition of five stars.
  7. Ekin: Nike Brand Evangelists: Ekin is Nike backwards and apparently it’s also the name the company gives its “official storytellers.”
  8. Diverselessness: Is the web actually a diverse place? Discuss.
  9. Neuroscience and the Creativity of Connections: A link and a few quotes from my favorite article of 2009 on neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran.
  10. Apple’s Television Advertising Barrage: My answer to all the folks who hold up Apple as an example of product as marketing. (Basically, they spend a shitload on television advertising.)

Great. Will try and do a better year-end wrap-up with top links of the year in the next two days.

December 30, 2009