
User retention at Pinterest: tackling an ambiguous problem - aarkay
https://medium.com/@Pinterest_Engineering/user-retention-at-pinterest-tackling-an-ambiguous-problem-32e65faaaa1
======
nuclx
The fact that registration is required for no obvious reason kinda makes the
site a no-go zone for me. I only occasionally land there via Google Image
search. Maybe I'm just not the right target audience, since I'm not a social
media guy. For my specialized interests there are better aggregators such as
specific subreddits / HN. Forcing registration is part of the user retention
strategy, but for me it makes using the site a non-starter.

~~~
Shivetya
the site disgusts me because it pollutes google image searches so thoroughly
and combined with the mentioned required registration just makes it poison
overall.

when I have to filter a site to get results I can use there is a problem and
there needs to be an easy method to permanent filter such sites.

~~~
ClassyJacket
I wish I could filter Pinterest and more importantly Quora from all search
results forever. I consider those sites deceptive and malicious spam.

Google released a Chrome addon that filters sites, but this doesn't help users
of other browsers and it hadn't been updated in over three years.

~~~
mikestew
Google briefly had a feature (back in the ExpertSexChange days) where you
could ban a domain from your search results. I miss that feature. Now
Pinterest gets blocked at DNS via pi-hole. At least it is something.

~~~
sml156
I am using Firefox and use "SearchMage - Search Enhancer" add-on for that

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchmage-
se...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchmage-search-
enhancer/)

I found it here a few months ago actually and am quite happy with it, It has a
few features that include infinite scroll that you can turn off or on.

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Jaruzel
> _When I joined the growth team at Pinterest_

There it is, right there. 'Growth team' \- a team dedicated to using every
dirty trick in the book to retain users. Facebook has one too, and that team
was responsible for all the shady cross-app data sharing on peoples phones.

Instead of treating your users as 'assets' simply to be owned and controlled,
why not actually ask them about their experience of using your service? Sure,
you'll only get a few percent of responders but it's a start.

Also, these sites need to factor in that a significant number of people are
reducing their social media usage, and this includes sites like Pinterest.
Sometimes a service just reaches the end of it's life, and that's ok.

Personally I really dislike Pinterest, I do not see the purpose it serves, and
as a non Pinterest user, I have issue with Google searches throwing up
Pinterest links that are of no use to me whatsoever.

~~~
m0rose
I like Pinterest. I'm bad at decorating, and I'm a bad cook, so having recipes
and decorating stuff that I can sift through and save into distinct idea books
is nice. However, the website/app is basically glorified bookmarks. Trying to
turn this into a Social Networking Empire is just pure greed, and I agree with
you: the "Growth Team" concept is wretched. Sure, it's an interesting problem
from a CompSci perspective, but the underlying motivations make me ill. Stop
trying to manipulate your users. If they like and have a use for it, they'll
use it. If they no longer have a use for it, they'll stop. BUT, if it's good
enough, then the incoming users should eclipse the outgoing, and you'll float
on just fine. Alas, for Social Network Empire wannabes, that's just not good
enough!

~~~
ncarroll
I really enjoy using are.na
([https://www.are.na/about](https://www.are.na/about)) for collecting images
and random bits of text into spaces where I can view them together. It's a
small, creative community and definitely not of the repost, repost, repost
quality that you find at Pinterest. It is run by a small team and they offer a
very useful free plan for getting started and membership is only $45/year.

I am not affiliated are.na. I am just a happy user.

------
iambateman
Pinterest is that it’s a fantastic way to browse collections (“recipes”,
“decorating ideas”, “gift ideas”) which are both stable and visual.

I use Pinterest on a weekly basis for recipes because my wife and I share a
board. Evidently I’m a power user by their metric.

But the problem is they are bound by impossible growth projections, which
prevent them from making Pinterest into the best once-weekly-recipe-tool.

In my opinion their search for social media dominance is a real drawback.

~~~
swiley
You can tell they don't want to be a useful tool, rather they want to suck in
as many users as they can and extract as much eyeball time as they can.

I have multiple friends who are addicted to just scrolling through pinterest.
The few times where I've thought it might be useful I've been stopped from
using it and told to make an account (I don't want to post anything back to
them, I don't see why I should have to keep track of _yet another_ set of
credentials just for them.)

If they where less aggressive toward their current and potential users and
instead looked at them with realistic and helpful attitude they would probably
be awesome. Right now I want nothing to do with them and I personally stay
away.

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technotarek
As much as I hate it, I suspect there is one answer with nearly perfect
correlation as to why Pinterest is losing users and their engagement:
Instagram.

------
pjc50
It's interesting that at no point in the process is any mention made of
communicating with the users. I appreciate that detailed useful feedback is
hard to get, especially from people who are disengaging already, but surely it
has to be in there somewhere?

~~~
mfjordvald
> While we were building the model we also wanted to figure out what to do for
> these Pinners once we could target them. We thought it would be best to ask
> them, as they surely would know why they were using Pinterest less. So we
> did an in-product survey for a sample set, and found the most common reason
> for not using Pinterest was that they got busy.

They did mention contacting users and, as is usual, got only the symptom, not
the underlying cause. Talking to users is great to understand why something
happens is great, but it has to be translated through deep product insight to
be useful.

~~~
Rjevski
Why would "being busy" be the symptom and not the cause?

I used similar platforms in the past. When I have time I'd spend a lot of it
on there, and when I didn't have time anymore (new job, etc) I didn't use the
platform much. This is perfectly normal and no amount of "retentions" or "re-
engagement" bullshit will make me spend more time on there unless they pay me
enough where spending time on the platform becomes more lucrative than my day
job.

~~~
seanhunter
Because everyone is busy, and the users probably always were busy. The thing
to figure out is why they were using pinterest before but now they aren't.

That means what's changed is now it's not enough of a priority to use vs other
things in their busy lives. The next interesting "why" question is not "Why
are you busy?" but something like "Why isn't pinterest valuable enough for you
to use, given that you are busy?"

If you want people to use your product, you need to focus on things you
control (making the product more valuable to users) rather than shrug your
shoulders and give up at things you can't control (the fact that your users
are busy).

------
TheHideout
For me, Pinterest works exactly how I want it to - as a store for inspiration
images. I use it heavily for storing concept art to later draw inspiration
from when doing game design, digital art, or screen-printing designs. Granted,
I don't find the search helpful at all and the embedded pins are terribly
irreverent and annoying.

If you are a Pinterest user and are interested in a large collection of
fantasy/cyberpunk artwork, you can see how I use it here (registration
required of course):

[https://pinterest.com/thehideoutgames/](https://pinterest.com/thehideoutgames/)

~~~
AceyMan
Be careful here — I maintained several active boards with quite a few
followers, but was flagged for "inappropriate images" which Pinterest mods
themselves deleted.

In the main, I'd only ever pinned images I found on the site itself, so I
thought "why pick on me, I'm not the one who originally pinned it?"

But I didn't go though my stuff and look for any other TOS violating images (I
really didn't think I had any) and then I was perm-banned. You have no
recourse once that happens.

Caveat emptor — its puritanical standards are likely to bite anyone who plays
outside the recipes and sewing categories into anything interesting in the art
and photography domains.

Screw you, Pinterest.

------
apricot13
I can forgive the forced login but i cant forgive the extra steps and buggy
login process - I cant count how many times I've ended up trying to register
rather than login.

also the recommendations get old quick its just my previous searches
aggregated gets boring quick. The instagram explore page has my valuable time
these days - it uses my searches plus things related to those to find new
things on many topics and ability to say "not relevant" is awesome - all i
need now is the ability to block anything "#lifehack"!

------
maire
Pinterest has an issue with their support. I was using it for a while to
gather inspiration on a particular subject. It just started crashing with a
server side error message. I submitted a bug report and the response was lame.
I kept saying look at your own server side error message. You must have logs
to look at. I don't think a human saw my bug responses. Now I don't use it at
all.

~~~
astura
In fairness, this is the support you get from pretty much all websites. I
stopped submitting bug reports entirely, it only leads to frustration.

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At1C
Sick and tired of registrations tracking spying builtin microphones on new
spytv calling it smart tv for who, I get no benefit out this game forced upon
all users. Terms and service agreements of bloatware, websites never improve
my viewing pleasure or work better forcing users to conform get stuffed. Hit
the Back button best voting option I have right now. I have learned to live
without G-You-TwitFace, even while on news.ycombinator if website has pop-up
sign-up begging, forced to conform and jump through hoops I hit the back
button, mostly enjoy reading the comments that's the real story people talk
about, and where you find the best information. Thxs for letting us vent,
other than that everything is A OK thxs

