Pinterest is a
pinboard-style
photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage
theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and
more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, 're-pin' images
to their own collections or 'like' photos. The site was founded by
Ben Silbermann (of
West Des Moines, Iowa),
Paul Sciarra, and
Evan Sharp, the site is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a
small group of entrepreneurs and inventors.[2]
History
Pinterest is similar to earlier social, image bookmarking systems
based on the same principle, such as David Galbraith's 2005 project
Wists.[3]
It allows users to save images and categorize them on different boards.
They can follow other users' boards if they have similar tastes. Popular
categories are travel, cars, film, humor, home design, sports, fashion,
and art.
Development of Pinterest began in December 2009, and the site
launched as a
closed beta in March 2010. The site proceeded to operate in
invitation-only
open beta.
Silbermann said he personally wrote to the site's first 5,000 users
offering his personal phone number and even meeting with some of its
users.[4]
Nine months after launch the website had 10,000 users. Silbermann and
a few programmers operated the site out of a small apartment until the
summer of 2011.[4]
Early in 2010, the company's investors and co-founder
Ben Silbermann tried to interest a New York-based magazine
publishing company in buying Pinterest. The publisher declined to meet
with the founders.[5]
The launch of an iPhone app in early March 2011 brought in a more
than expected number of downloads.[5]
On 16 August 2011,
Time magazine listed Pinterest in its "50 Best Websites of
2011" article.[6]
The Pinterest app for
iPhone
was last updated in May 2012,[7]
and an iPad
app is currently available for purchase.[4]
Pinterest Mobile, launched September 2011, is a version of the website
for non-iPhone users.[8]
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.[9]
The next month, it drove more referral traffic to retailers than
LinkedIn,
YouTube,
and
Google+.[10][11]
The same month, the company was named the best new
startup of 2011 by
TechCrunch.[12]
Noted entrepreneurs and investors include: Jack Abraham,
Michael Birch,
Scott Belsky, Brian Cohen, Shana Fisher,
Ron
Conway,
FirstMark Capital, Kevin Hartz, Jeremy Stoppelman, Hank Vigil, and
Fritz Lanman.[13]
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.[14]
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.
At the
South By Southwest Interactive conference in March 2012, Silbermann
announced revamped profile pages were being developed and would be
implemented soon.[4]
On 23 March 2012, Pinterest unveiled updated
terms of service that eliminated the policy that gave it the right
to sell its users' content.[15]
The terms would go into effect April 6.[16]
According to
Experian
Hitwise,
the site became the third largest social network in the United States in
March 2012, surpassing LinkedIn and
Tagged.[17]
Co-founder Paul Sciarra left his position at Pinterest in April 2012
for a consulting job as
entrepreneur in residence at
Andreessen Horowitz.[18]
On 17 May 2012, Japanese electronic commerce company
Rakuten
announced it was leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest,
alongside investors including
Andreessen Horowitz,
Bessemer Venture Partners, and
FirstMark Capital, based on a
valuation of $1.5 billion.[19][20]
On 10 August 2012, Pinterest was opened to everyone without request
or require an invitation.[21]
In addition, the Pinterest app for
Android and
iPad was also launched on August 14, 2012.[22]
The Android app was customer designed for Android phones & tablets of
all cost, speed and size while the iPad app is described as the "best
Pinterest experience yet.[23]
On September 20, 2012 Pinterest announced that it has hired its new
head of engineering, Jon Jenkins. Jenkins came from Amazon, where he
spent eight years as an engineering lead and was also a director of
develop tools, director of platform analysis and director of website
platform.[24]
In October of 2012, Pinterest announced a new feature that would
allow users to report others for negative and offensive activity or
block other users if they do not want to view their content. Pinterest
said they want to keep their community "positive and respectful.".[25]
Also in October, Pinterest launched business accounts allowing
businesses to either convert their existing personal accounts into
business accounts, or start from scratch.[26]
Usage
Pinterest users can upload, save, sort and manage images, known as
pins, and other media content (i.e. videos) through collections known as
pinboards.[27]
Pinboards are generally themed so that pins can easily be organized,
categorized and discovered by other users. Pinterest acts as a
personalized media platform, whereby your own content as well as anyone
else's uploaded pins can be browsed on the main page. Users can then
save their favourite pins to one of their own boards using the "Pin It"
button. Content can also be found outside of Pinterest and similarly
uploaded to a board via the "Pin It" button which can be downloaded to
the
bookmark bar on a web browser,[28]
or be implemented by a webmaster directly on the website.
There are several ways to register a new Pinterest account. Potential
users can either receive an invitation from a friend already registered,
or request an invitation directly from the Pinterest website. The
invitation may take some time to be received. An account can also be
created and accessed by linking Pinterest to a
Facebook or
Twitter
profile. When a user re-posts or "re-pins" an image to their own board,
they have the option of notifying their Facebook and Twitter followers;
this feature can be managed on the settings page.[29]
Users who choose to log into Pinterest via Facebook must currently be
using Facebook's "Timeline" format.[30][31]
On the main Pinterest page, a "pin feed" appears, displaying the
chronological activity from the Pinterest boards that a user follows.[32]
When browsing for new boards and relevant pins, users can visit a
"Tastemakers" page that recommend pinboards with content similar to
previous pins saved by a user.[27]
For both guests and Pinterest users, there are currently four main
sections to browse: everything, videos, popular, and gifts. These
subcategories provide an organized system of browsing, which helps
fellow users to connect and share interests.
Quick links to Pinterest include the "pin it" button that can be
added to the bookmark bar of a web browser, "Follow me" and "Pin it"
buttons added to personal website or blog page,[28]
and the Pinterest
iPhone application available (for free) through the
App Store.[33]
Users should be aware of certain terms and functions when using
Pinterest. A "board" is where the users pins are located, users can have
several boards for various items. A "pin" is an image that has either
been uploaded or from a link on a website. Once users create boards and
add pins, other users can now "repin" meaning that they can "pin" one
users image to their board as well.[34]
Once the user has set up their account and boards, they can browse,
comment, and like other "pins". If a user wants to turn an image online
into a "pin" there are a few simple steps to do so. First, the user must
select image that you want to pin. Second, the user then click on the
“Add +” button on Pinterest. Third, copy and paste an image URL into the
link box. Next, the user will select the exact image they wish to pin
and place in the designated board. Users can then describe the pin and
share it via Twitter or Facebook. Other users can now click on the pin
to see which board the image is pinned in, who pinned the image
previously, where the original pin is from, and who has liked,
commented, or repinned the image.
The website has proven especially popular among women.[35]
The most popular categories on Pinterest are food & drink, DIY & crafts
and women's apparel.[36]
Pinboards can be used by educators to plan lessons. Teachers can pin
sites for later referral. Students can pin and organize sources and
collaborate on projects.[37]
Pinterest has played a role in the run-up to the 2012 US Presidential
Election. The wives of both candidates created accounts. Ann Romney
debuted her Pinterest account in March and First Lady Michele Obama
announced hers in June.[38]
Business pages
Pinterest also allows businesses to create pages aimed at promoting
their businesses online. Such pages can serve as a "virtual storefront".
In one case study of a fashion website, users visiting from Pinterest
spent $180 compared with $85 spent from users coming from Facebook.
These users spent less time on the company's website, choosing instead
to browse from the company's pinboard.[39]
Further brand studies have continued to show Pinterest is more effective
at driving sales than other forms of social media.
[40]
User base
Demographics
Globally, the site is most popular with women. In 2012, it was
reported that 83% of the global users were women.[41]
In Britain, however as of March 2012, 56% of the users were male and
their age profile was different too, being about 10 years younger than
in the U.S., where the age range was typically 35-44.[42]
In terms of age distribution, the Pinterest demographic closely
resembles the U.S. Internet population.[43]
Growth
For January 2012
comScore reported the site had 11.7 million unique U.S. visitors,
making it the fastest site ever to break through the 10 million unique
visitor mark.[14]
comScore recorded a unique users
moving average growth of 85% from mid-January to mid-February and a
17% growth from mid-February to mid-March.[44]
Much of the service's
early user base consisted of infrequent contributors. The site's
user growth, which slowed in March 2012, could pick up as the site's
user base solidifies around dedicated users according to a comScore
representative.[45]
In August 2012, Pinterest overtook competing micro-blogging site Tumblr
for the first time in terms of unique monthly visitors, clocking in at
just under 25 million.[46]
Business
Pinterest was first conceptualized in December 2009 by co-founders
Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra. The first prototype was
launched in March 2010 where it was available to a small group of
colleagues and family members.[47]
Since its inception three years ago, it has developed into a well-funded
site financially supported by a group of successful entrepreneurs and
investors including:
FirstMark Capital, Jack Abraham (Milo), Michael Birch (Bebo),
Scott Belsky (Behance),
Shana Fisher (Highline Venture Partners), Ron Conway (SV Angel), Kevin
Hartz (EventBrite), Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Hank Vigil, Fritz Lanman,
and Brian S. Cohen".[48]
As Pinterest continues to grow and develop, so does its business
opportunity as a promising marketing platform, especially in terms of
data collection for retail companies and marketing strategists.
In early 2011, the company secured a $10 million USD
Series A financing led by Jeremy Levine and Sarah Tavel of
Bessemer Venture Partners. In October 2011, after an introduction
from Kevin Hartz and Jeremy Stoppelman, the company secured $27 million
USD in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, which valued the company at
$200 million USD.[49]
Retail companies have taken advantage of Pinterest for advertising
and style trending. The web design provides an ideal layout for "style
conscious retailers",[50]
where products can easily be visualized within a consumer context.
Companies like The Gap, Chobani, Nordstrom and West Elm use Pinterest as
a tool for online referrals that link users with similar interests to a
company.[50]
The Gap has arguably taken the biggest initiative in their use of
Pinterest, employing their own themed pinboards such as "Denim
Icons" and "Everybody in Gap".[50]
Baynote founder Scott Brave sees Pinterest as an ideal environment
to collect
affinity data; a resource that holds the potential for substantial
demand and income. This data "reveals valuable relationships between
consumer behaviours, products and content", where it can be collected
and sold as marketing analysis.[51]
As of March 2012, Pinterest is valued at $1.5 billion.[52]
Copyrighted
content
Pinterest has a notification system which allows copyright holders to
request that content be removed from the site. The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
safe harbor status of Pinterest has been questioned given that it
actively promotes its users to copy to Pinterest, for their perpetual
use, any image on the Internet. Pinterest users cannot claim safe harbor
status and as such are exposed to possible legal action for pinning
copyrighted material.[53]
A "nopin" HTML
meta tag was released by Pinterest on 20 February 2012 to allow
websites to opt out of their images being pinned. On 24 February 2012,
Flickr
implemented the code to allow users to opt out their photos.[54]
Pinterest released a statement in March 2012 saying it believed it
was protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provisions.[55]
No major copyright lawsuits have emerged as of March 2012.[44]
In early May 2012, the site added automatic
attribution of authors on images originating from Flickr,
Behance,
YouTube
and Vimeo.
Automatic attribution was also added for Pins from sites mirroring
content on Flickr. At the same time Flickr added a Pin shortcut to its
share option menu to users who have not opted out of sharing their
images.[56]
Reception
Terms of service
A
Scientific American article criticized Pinterest's self-imposed
ownership of user content stating that "Pinterest's
terms of service have been garnering a lot of criticism for stating
in no uncertain terms that anything you "pin" to their site belongs to
them. Completely. Wholly. Forever and for always".
Pinterest's Terms of Service stated:
"By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application
or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide,
irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free
license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify,
distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform,
transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such
Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or
Services".[57]
Under the terms all personal, creative and intellectual property
posted to the site belonged to the website and could be sold.
The fact that the content could be sold particularly unsettled
another Scientific American blogger who said, "Problematically in
the same paragraph, Pinterest states: 'Cold Brew Labs does not claim any
ownership rights in any such Member Content'. So which is it? Do they
claim ownership to the content or not? And what are they planning to
sell, anyway?"[58]
In March 2012, Pinterest unveiled updated terms of service that ended
the site's claims of ownership once implemented in April. "Selling
content was never our intention", said the company in a blog post.[15][16]
Legal status
In February 2012, photographer and lawyer Kirsten Kowalski wrote a
blog post explaining how her interpretation of copyright law led her to
delete all her infringing pins.[59]
The post contributed to scrutiny over Pinterest's legal status.[55]
The post went
viral and reached founder Ben Silbermann who contacted Kowalski to
discuss making the website more compliant with the law.[59]
Content creators on sites such as
iStock have expressed concern over their work being reused on
Pinterest without permission.
Getty Images said that it was aware of Pinterest's copyright issues
and was in discussion with them.
A
meta tag was released by Pinterest in February 2012 to allow
websites to opt out of their images being pinned.[54]
Awards
At the 2012
Webby Awards, Pinterest won best social media app and people's voice
award for best functioning visual design.[59]
Third-party developers and content
Many third-party developers have created web applications, browser
extensions, and even podcasts devoted to Pinterest. These items range
from analytics, to enlarging the images on Pinterest's website.
Technical
Pinterest is written on the
Django python web framework.[60]
Use by scammers
Social engineering of Pinterest users by scammers to propagate
surveys promising free products was noted by the computer security firm
Symantec in March 2012. Scam images, often branded with a well-known
company name like
Starbucks, offer incentives such as gift cards for completing a
survey. Once the link in the description is clicked, users are taken to
an external site and asked to re-pin the scam image. Victims are
phished
for their personal information and the promised free product is never
delivered.[61]
Other scammers capitalized on the lack of an official
Google Play app. Low-quality Pinterest apps purporting to be
official have appeared that generate ad revenue or monitor the
downloader's activity.[62]
There is now an official Pinterest app for Android devices.