Tonight I added my 1000th picture to Instagram. Surprisingly I didn't realize that I'd reached this milestone, someone had to point it out. Surely this is the sort of thing that deserves a power up? But then again I rarely fall for that kind of gamification. Also I'm not sure how I feel about it, definitely a hint of shame in their.

However it got me thinking about what that 1000 images might mean. I'm pretty into Instagram - as I've said before, they got the simple, instant, social mix just right. But 1000 images! That's a lot of content, even if it is mainly dogs and food ;) It's also a lot of datapoints and very rich ones at that. I don't do Facebook but realize that it's a tiny fraction compared to the enormous amount of interactions generated and tracked per user per day by them. Still, 1000 images seems a very quantifiable thing even if it does only equate to 40 seconds of film. Or if I'm feeling a little more grandiose; a million words. It's left me with a bunch of questions spinning around in my head.

What do they say about me?

Is there an agenda or story that they are obviously spinning?

How long did I spend taking, choosing and posting them?

How long did I spend viewing them and tracking the likes and comments?

How much energy did they use (are they using)?

How many minutes of the worlds collective time have been spent looking at them?

Has anyone else seen them all?

I plan to look into these over the coming weeks as a small side project.

All related stuff will be here #mgm1000images