February 22, 2012
Have you started “pinning” yet? In a short amount of time Pinterest has become the hot social media site, and not everybody is sure just why. Some have opined that the visually focused site is a magnet for women who love to window shop. Others have noted it is a foodie’s paradise, with drool worthy images of “food porn” ripe for the clicking.
Pinterest has already garnished plenty of attention and scrutiny. Some critics have ladled criticism on the way the site handles links, taking web traffic away from one place and putting it in another. And there has been some concern over copyright use.
What really is Pinterest? Basically it is like a digital poster board where users can “pin” images from the web to “boards” which can be shared. It might look simple…and maybe that’s the secret for its sudden popularity. It’s also just what some luxury goods retailers would like to create…a visual mash up of a marketplace and a wish list. Just the thing if you are a brand manager for someone like Louis Vuitton…
This buzzworthy start up is not surprisingly looking for a way to monetize both the web traffic and the marketing potential of this 16-person Palo Alto, California start-up. Jeremy Levine, a board member of Pinterest and a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners notes “We have one hundred ideas but no execution as of yet.”
Time will surely tell whether Pinterest becomes more than a one trick pony, but the visceral appeal of sharing beautiful images in a clean, intuitive way is resonating with a lot of people. And that is not going unnoticed.