The website that has everyone buzzing with excitement (and is my current addiction) is the virtual pin board, Pinterest. This online pinboard allows you to organize and share things of interest through photographs. The actual “pin” is an image that is uploaded to Pinterest. A pin can be added from a website using the “Pin It” button, just like the Facebook and Twitter buttons, or you can upload a picture directly from your computer. Each pin that gets added links back to the website it originally came from.
Pinterest now has 11 million vistors since Jaunary, 80 percent being women between the ages of 25-44.
A small team in Palo Alto, Calif., created Pinterest. The service is provided by Cold Brew Labs, Inc., but the team decided to keep it simple with the name “Pinterest.”
Pinterest is like an online scrapbook. You can follow other users who have similar interests, write comments and share others’ content.
Pins can be organized by creating a board. A board is a set of pins that can be created on any topic and there is no limit to how many pins you can have in a board. Pinterest will start new users out with various boards but they can be altered to whatever suits you best. For example, my boards consist of ‘fitness,’ ‘style,’ ‘for the home,’ ‘animals’ and ‘products I love.’
There are a number of different categories to choose from such as art, design, do-it-yourself, geek, sports and many more. What is most intriguing about the site is the creative ideas you can get from it for your home, wedding, style and yummy recipes.
If there is a picture that you like but you do not want to follow that user, that’s okay. Liking the picture just adds it to the “Likes” on your profile.
There is also a button called “repin” that is like a “retweet.” If someone has an image that you like you can repin and add it to one of your boards. Repinning will show where the image was taken from. The caption can be edited and you can repin from a friend or a random user.
As of now, Pinterest is funded by outside investments from different entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They might try adding advertisements but have not done so yet.
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks right now. It is a great way to find creative ideas. So go online and give pinterest a try, just becareful it’s highly addictive and may cause procrastination.
