Pinterest describes itself as “a virtual discovery tool that you can use to
find ideas”.
Other descriptions include: photo sharing, catalog of ideas, database of intentions, digital scrapbook – it’s about inspiration.
Bottom line; what Pinterest offers is a giant database of catalogued images assembled by . . . everyone!
You can search and follow topics that interest you:
flowers, hairstyles, desserts, sunny destinations,
fashion for 50 year olds, sailing, baseball . . .
– absolutely anything!
Key in what you want to search and you are then shown a ton of images on the topic and given a ton of category options if you want to narrow your search.
Click on any image and it will take you to the “board” that it’s pinned on. Often it will give an option to visit the website that it came from or it may take you directly to a website. Note: it always opens in a new window so you can easily go back to the Pinterest image page.
When you do find something that catches your eye that you want to save, you can “pin” it to your “board”. This is akin to the old fashioned version of pinning a picture to a bulletin board with a push pin. You can create different “boards” and categorize them to help organize your “pins”. You can also choose whether or not your board can be viewed by others (set “secret” to yes or no).
I just signed up on Pinterest today and I have two boards going already. One is for great quotes (there are a ton of them) and one is for recipes. Recipes? Let me explain. I added “healthy eating” as one of my interests and found a picture of chinese fried rice that looked very yummy. The caption below the pic said “learn how to make the best fried rice . . .”. So I clicked on the image and it took me to a website for recipes. See how that works! I “pinned” this image to my board and now I have a resource to find new recipes. (I will let you know how the chinese fried rice turns out)
Pinterest has been slotted into the “social networking” niche but I don’t really see that. Sure, you can share images and ideas with friends, follow the boards of your friends, like and comment on each others pins, re-pin content to your own board but I don’t really see “communication”.
What I do see is a lot of links to a lot of websites AKA a marketing tool.
I’m not slamming Pinterest, not by any means. It’s actually a great way to get to websites with content that you’re interested in. I found lots of websites dedicated to the 50-plus crowd with lots of valuable information. I am going to set up a board and start to “pin” them so I can come back to them later when I have more time.
If you aren’t already on Pinterest, I would tell you to check it out but you can’t just pop by. It won’t let you in unless you sign up. Signing up is free and not intrusive in any way (name, email address and gender) so I say give it a go!
A word of warning though – SET A TIMER!
You could literally get lost on Pinterest for hours.
You could start out looking at wedding flowers and, 4 hours later, you’re fawning over cute baby animal pictures with no idea how you got there!
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