Pinterest ~ A Virtual Pinboard

“Perusing other folks’ boards, featuring everything from picturesque travel scenes to oddly beautiful bacteria, is as enjoyable as building your own.” ~ Time

As many of my family and friends know, I am often on the leading edge of new social media trends. At my first company meeting with Amazon (I joined the team in January) I heard about the fastest growing social media company in the world, Pinterest. Here is how my site looks after a half hour of palying with it.

So if you are still reading let’s answer the question, what is Pinterest? From their site we find:

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.

The site is easy to use, especially if you install the Pin It icon on your favorite browser’s bookmark bar. In very little time you are thrust in the mostly visual world of the virtual pinboard.

“Expressing passion for a hobby is just as easy as browsing for your next purchase. But what’s even more addictive about the site — a collection of collections — is that it’s just as much about the users as it is what they’ve posted.” ~ Mashable

From Wikipedia we glean:

On August 16, 2011, Time magazine listed Pinterest in its “50 Best Websites of 2011” article. Pinterest is similar to earlier social, image bookmarking systems based on the same principle, such as David Galbraith’s 2005 project Wists.

The Pinterest app for iPhone was last updated in February 2012. An iPad app is being developed. The company has a mobile website.

In December 2011, the site became one of the top 10 largest social network services, according to Hitwise data, with 11 million total visits per week. The next month, it drove more referral traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+.The same month, the company was named the best new startup of 2011 by TechCrunch.

In January 2012 comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique users, making it the fastest site in history to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark. Pinterest’s wide reach helped it achieve an average of 11 million visits each week in December 2011. Most of the site’s users are female, with 97% of the site’s Facebook “likes” being made by women.

On the Pinterest site you can zero in on special interest. For example, here is the Humor pinboard:

At the South By Southwest Interactive conference in March, Silbermann announced revamped profile pages were being developed and would be implemented soon.
On March 23 Pinterest unveiled updated terms of service that eliminated the policy that gave it the right to sell its user’s content.

I sent invitations to the most adventurous friends of mine. Hope to see youse there soon.