I was going to have this article about Pinterest be my last Cavalier Daily article to be published this year, but the Health and Science section is being discontinued until next year. So here it is in all of its glory.
Pinterest is currently one of the fastest growing and most popular websites. According to Internet statistics firms, Pinterest has over 11 million users, and is now the 3rd largest social network, with only Facebook and Twitter having more users. Despite its huge and rapid growth, it remains an invite-only service and does not have the notoriety of the two larger social networks.
Pinterest is a virtual pin board that is based around sharing photos and pictures with friends. It’s equal parts social network and photo sharing service. The website is composed of an infinitely long grid which is populated by pictures from people you are following. Adding pictures is called “pinning” and pictures are organized into collections. Pictures can be added from a user’s computer or from another website. Clicking on a picture will bring up a description and comments, as well as options to repin or share it. If the picture is from another website, then clicking on the image again will take you to that website.
Primarily people are using Pinterest to share photos, pictures, infographics, and other images. But users are finding other useful ways to use the site. In reference to how people are using the service, Fortune writes that people “have turned to it to plan weddings, save recipes, and post ideas for kitchen renovations.” Since 83% of US users are females, many of the common uses of Pinterest are geared towards women, such as planning weddings and other events that have many different visual components. Pinterest is also particularly well suited for browsing images of clothing and food. Since a link is associated with every image from another website, it is very easy to visit the source webpage, to either buy the product, read the recipe, or just see the other associated content.
Besides being an invaluable tool for planning weddings, cooking, and shopping, people love that the website helps them save images for later, while simultaneously discovering new things. Businesses are also adopting Pinterest in droves because it drives a lot of sales and is free promotion. Some colleges are even using the service to recruit new students, and to engage current students and alumni.
Other websites are also benefitting form Pinterest’s massive success. It is one of the top referrers of web traffic and many websites, such as Amazon and Ebay, are adding Pinterest buttons to their websites. Perhaps in the future a Pinterest button will be as ubiquitous as the Facebook “Like” button.
The social network is experiencing its fair share problems, however. Spammers and stealth marketers can flood Pinterest with images of clothing and get a referrer fee for directing people to a website where they can purchase the item. The Verge, a popular technology news website, recently exposed a Pinterest spammer who claims to earn“ over $1,000 a day, and expects to earn between $2,000 and $2,500” in the near future.”
Pinterest is also making money in a similar way, but with one major difference. The New York Times reported that if “pins link to an e-commerce site…then Pinterest adjusts the link and adds an affiliate tracking code. That way, if someone else browsing the site clicks on the picture of those mugs and decides to purchase them, Pinterest gets a cut of the transaction.” So clicking on an image of shoes and then buying them on Amazon could mean money for Pinterest. What makes what Pinterest is doing more ethical than what spammers are doing is that they are not actively promoting those links with the intent of making money.
Despite its problems with spammers, the future for Pinterest is very bright. Tech Cruch, a technology blog that reports on Silicone Valley start-ups, recently reported that Pinterest raised 27 million dollars and is valued around $200 million. With other tech start-ups being bought for large sums of money, such as Faceback recently buying the iPhone photo-sharing app Instamgram for 1 billion dollars, it wouldn’t be surprising if a large tech company buys Pinterest for hundreds of millions of dollars in the future. That would be a pretty nice payday for a 2 years old company with less than 20 employees.
