We tend to think of Pinterest as being pretty straightforward: See pretty picture/thing we want, pin it, repeat ad infinitum. Hence the free-and-clear path to monetization.
But the Daily Dot reports that a particularly aggressive “transmedia” publisher, BeActive, wants to use the platform as a storytelling medium. The company is taking Beat Girl, a novel, and turning it into: Read More
Pinterest, the social image-sharing pinboard site beloved by maiden aunts and chronically depressed ex-girlfriends everywhere, isn’t so hot anymore, apparently. While Pinterest soared in popularity at the end of 2011 and by March this year was the third most popular U.S. social network, new user signups appear to have dropped off a cliff. Nicholas Carlson made note of this in Business Insider several days ago: Read More
Not one, not two, but three of your Betabeat editors actually guffawed aloud upon discovering @PicturelessPins, a weeks-old Twitter account that offers “the best of Pinterest without having to look at the pictures.” Think Garfield Minus Garfield, but for the bangs and fairy dust and decoupage-loving set. The Twitter account serves up textual descriptions of typical Pinterest fare, which somehow manage to be both more interesting and entertaining than the actual pins they’re alluding to. We’ve collected a few of our favorite PicturelessPins tweets after the jump. Read More
It’s been established that Pinterest is the Next Big Thing in social media. Though the site has a reputation as an outlet for wedding-crazy girlfriends and middle-aged women, there’s something to entice every use. Yesterday we brought 100 Worst Pins on Pinterest; here’s a cross-section of the 100 best boards Pinterest has to offer. We tried to keep the number of wedding boards to a minimum. Read More
It’s the ludicrously hot startup of the moment, with a hockey-stick adoption curve and a whole mess of clones. It’s where you go to spend hours staring longingly at shoes you can’t afford and dishes you’re too lazy to cook. It’s also the place where you discover that your Great Aunt Mildred has magnificently luxe taste in bathroom fixtures and your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is shopping for appallingly expensive wedding gowns.
Pinterest has a reputation for the aspirational and the inspirational, and that interface sure is pretty. But stratospheric social network membership comes with a price, and that’s the inexorable drift to the lowest common denominator. And so we’ve seen the rise of sites like Pinterest You Are Drunk, documenting grave lapses in pin-related judgement. Read More
With Instagram snapped up, everyone’s looking to Pinterest. Who’s got the cash and looking to spend? Business Insider cornered Google VP of corporate development David Lawee, who handles their M&A. Their biggest problem, he says, is video discovery:
“If you look at what we’re rooted in, it’s kind of obvious what we’re looking for….The most challenging problem we have right now is discovery of video, that’s the most challenging problem on the web. Social is one enabler, tagging is one enabler.”
Now, company does face a few other issues at the moment. There are the privacy concerns. Then there’s the rise of walled gardens Google can’t trawl. There’s even getting more traction on the aforementioned enabler, social.
But video is certainly an issue looming on the horizon, and Google isn’t the only member of the old guard trying to get out in front of the problem. Nor does it sound like integrating Google+ into search results was enough to crack the discovery nut. Lawee admitted their current social layer helped but it’s ”not even 1 percent where it should be.” Read More
Video
What could possibly entice users of the famously sticky Pinterest to spend longer on the site? How about the addition of Vimeo pinning? Yup, that sounds about right. According to the company blog, the new functionality works just like YouTube pinning (available since last August) and, as an example, they’ve pinned that slightly heartbreaking short about the kid who built himself an arcade out of cardboard.
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