Pinterest

If you’re reading this article and you’re online, then you’ll be most likely aware of social networks. Hell, “aware” is the very least you’ll be, and you’re more likely to be a member of one, two, three, or more of these famous pervasive entities. To be honest, I belong to an excessive number of them, though you can count on one hand the number on which I’m truly active.

Social networks exist to provide our needs that allows us to keep in touch with friends and family, share photos with one another, talk about current events, and make new connections. In reality, most are businesses out to make money by inviting us in to their webs where they’ll consume our data before spitting it out into the laps of anyone willing to pay for it.

We all know this is true, and yet we still play along and we even have our favorite social networks. I’m an avid fan of Pinterest. It is an online board wherein you can post your favorite images which was launched in 2010. Unlike other photo sharing sites, the emphasis here is on the discovery and curation of other people’s content, not storing your own. This visual aspect of the site is one reason why it’s captured the interest of so many businesses, from retailers to photographers and designers, who are using it as a portfolio or product catalog. I don’t feel the need to look for friends but I rather find out what their interests are. Don’t get me wrong, I love following other interesting people in the world and see for myself their discoveries that I might get interested with. My biggest concern is it is too open. I don’t like that there is no approval for following boards and people even though they are private. It is a unique platform and one of the reasons why Pinterest has captured the imagination of people like me.

One thing is clear whether you're on Pinterest for personal or business reasons; the best images whether they are funny, beautiful or thought provoking, attracts the most attention and followers. In the near future, another social media verb — “pin” — will likely be as commonly recognized in our lexicon as “tweet” and “Like.” This adoption was certainly helped by the inclusion of “pin” in the initial rollout of Facebook’s social actions. Given Pinterest’s current growth rate, I expect that’s just the first of many ways this site will take over all of our lives.