Pinterest: A Picture is Worth 1,000 Ideas

I remember before the internet (yes, there was once a time) when I’d rip out images that inspired me, either from a magazine or *gasp* a book… don’t judge! Now, I just save everything to my computer or phone. But all those inspiring, interesting, or inviting bits and pieces are distributed and don’t offer the satisfaction of that bulletin board with its dozens of ragged-edged artifacts externalizing and recombining my many interests.

Pinterest: The Digital Bulletin Board

Now, there’s Pinterest. It’s the hottest new social network, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen yet (unless you’re one of its 13 million users). Pinterest is a digital bulletin board that lets you organize and share all the things you stumble upon on the web in a uniquely visual way.

For example, if you come across a pair of great shoes or an unbelievable picture of a thunder storm, you don’t have to abstract it with a bookmark that you’ll never click. Instead, you pin it on Pinterest with the click of a button, and it’s saved for you there, nestled amongst all your other favorite things.

Not only can you ‘pin’ things from the web, but you can browse and ‘repin’ them from pinboards created by other people. People use pinboards to generate new ideas or share their love for web design, cooking, building, interior design, and more.

You can assemble a pinboard to plan an upcoming vacation, arrange your research statistics to get a new eye on the matter, create a vivid wish list, see if that sofa goes with that rug and the color of the walls, or create your altar to Hedy Lamarr.

Pinterest: The Growth

With $37.5 M in funding raised since October 2011, Pinterest is growing fast. The number of daily users has increased by 145 percent in 2012. It’s one of the fastest growing social networks yet, and according to Lemon.ly, it’s “generating more referral traffic to websites than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined.”

So, who uses Pinterest? In the US, 83 percent of users are women, but in the UK, only 44 percent of users are women. Most users are between the ages of 25 and 45. The diversity of these numbers tells us one fact: Pinterest has broad appeal.

It’s time to forget the saying, “A picture is worth a 1,000 words.” It’s more like, a picture is worth 1,000 ideas! I just learned how to make hot dog spaghetti spiders (use your imagination) from a picture on Pinterest! What will you be inspired to do?

Have I pinned your interest? Check out our pinboard at Pinterest.com/MediaG/Geekery