Hullo chaps, I do apologise for my absence, have been very very busy. I’m in the process of redoing my blog, so I’ve been mucking around with a test server I built cos I am a geek and proud. Also slicing off part of my thumb on conditioner bottles but that’s a different story.
Since I am a geek, and adore the internet (because it is my friend) I feel I should display that. Look forward to a new round of posts on my favourite topic (not bread) but social media.
Techcrunch announced that social pinboard site, Pinterest has just received $27 million worth of funding. Pinterest has a very simple concept, you “pin” images from around the web to your own curated pinboards, via the Pin It button, a simple Java applet you drag into your toolbar or through logging into the site and posting the link. Pretty straightforward huh? It’s definitely simple but it’s not boring. You can now pin videos as well. A nice little collaborative feature is opening your board for others to pin, which I imagine would be very helpful on collabs.
It’s in semi private beta at the moment, but I’ve been on it for about four months, as I received an invite from Kit and I’ve been happily pinning away for a while. As a stylist, it’s great to pin all sorts of images I see for inspiration, or looks I like. As a hoarder, it’s my wet dream. And it has continuous scrolling, which is a definite plus with this kind of site.
You can follow other user’s pinboards, and re-pin their images and search via categories.
There are also a few brands on it already, including kitsch jewellery brand Tatty Devine. What’s extra useful is that you use Pinterest to sell items – by pinning items for sale with a price, users will click through to the actual merchant’s site, which avoids Pinterest’s need to implement a checkout and gets rid of an additional headache. It only works with merchants who have implemented a “Pin It” button on their products.
However according to Pinterest Ettiquette is that your pinboard must be not be used for shameless self promotion. Which by all means is great. For a brand, you can curate existing content as well as adding items of interest, letting consumers know what’s behind the brand, as well as having a selection of your products to drive traffic to your site.
I obviously like to promote memes and image macros.
The only issue at the moment, is that the servers tend to go down (not as much as Tumblr though.) However, with more funding, I look forward to when Pinterest is a lot more stable.
Does Pinterest sound like something that’d interest you? I have invites if you’re interested in joining. Drop me a comment with your email address and you could also be pinning away like a boss.
And you can 
by clicking on the button.
