Pinterest is pin-tastic

It is a little hard to define the latest social networking site when you first see it. On the surface, Pinterest seems like any other Tumblresque mini-blog. A stream of images, snippets of text, and other items seemingly picked at random. Once you get into it, however, you realise there is much more going on.

It incorporates a Follow function similar to Twitter’s, but instead of seeing everything someone pins, you can follow only the boards (thematic groups of photos) that interest you. And if they pin something that catches your eye you can “repin” it to one of your boards. Simple. You can also like and leave comments on items, just like Facebook.

Pinning an item is incredibly simple. You simply add a special bookmark to your browser. Click the bookmark when you find something and it pops up a small window asking you to choose a board and title for the item. That’s it.

This ease of use makes it incredibly simple to get started. I’ve only been a member for a couple of days and I’ve already created half a dozen boards, and I’ve got plans for half a dozen more. I even created a board for my own photographs. My own pseudo deviantArt account, free of criticism and judging.

It not fun and pins, though. There are serious concerns about the Pinterest’s Terms of Service and the way it can display copyright material without permission. To their credit, the team behind the site are working to address them. They are also developing code that will allow a page to automatically refuse pin requests. Also, like all other social sites they are still trying to work out how to monetise it without annoying their user base.

All that aisde, my only real gripe with Pinterest is that their smartphone app is designed to only work on Apple’s iOS. If they’re serious about the mobile market, that will have to change.

So that’s it. A simple review for a simple site. And I don’t mean simple in a bad way, either.

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