I think we need to be careful about writing off Pinterest too quickly. Pinterest is probably the first social network to take off with "normal" people before it took off with alpha geeks. (e.g. over the holidays family/friends/parents were all talking about Pinterest. I'm not the only one: [1]).
This isn't merely about the long-form writing becoming dumbed down to button-pushing.
Once you get past the pictures of shirtless Ryan Gosling there is something really powerful: similar to how Google captured the link graph, Pinterest is capturing the interest graph [2].
I think people are getting way to focused on creating a broader theme around Pinterest's success from a technical implementation POV and not focusing on some of the bigger drivers. I see Pinterest being successful because of:
- Content: Foods, Crafts, Home, Babies: How many web services address these market as their primary focus? I'm only really up to speed on the craft industry and that alone is worth $30B a year. You'd have to combine the video game and music industries together to match that. Now think about how many companies are focusing on Music/Games vs. crafts and Pinterest's success isn't that crazy. They basically have a monopoly of...
- Women aged 15-55: I'm a heavy user, but from what I've seen ~98% of users are women. The site has a "feminine" aesthetic and a design first layout. Its a pleasure to browse on any screen.
- Fun: The collecting instinct is strong, the site makes it easy to collect, and I can build up a collection quickly. It is "Gamified" without any of the overplayed tropes of badges or leaderboards. It also is very "pretty" like a magazine.
It is useful (helps me collect recipes), Targeted (No boys allowed), fun (games/cool layout), and as johnnyn said "Real World Social". Users collect recipes and cook together, or talk about ideas while looking at an ipad together. It utilizes real social networks for distribution.
I may be wrong, but look at this list of "Social Curation" websites which behave very similarly to Pinterest and think about why they have not experienced the rocket ship growth:
I couldn't agree more. The moment I heard my wife, sister-in-law, and brother's girlfriend talking about Pinterest in separate "real life" conversations, I knew this site was something to pay attention to.
This isn't merely about the long-form writing becoming dumbed down to button-pushing.
Once you get past the pictures of shirtless Ryan Gosling there is something really powerful: similar to how Google captured the link graph, Pinterest is capturing the interest graph [2].
[1] https://twitter.com/#!/josephflaherty/status/150961041751289...
[2] https://twitter.com/#!/josephflaherty/status/142235130872868...