Pinterest – Why the Hype

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The latest buzzword on everyone’s lips, social media plans and web design lately is Pinterest. Described on the site as “an online pinboard to organize and share the things you love” this newcomer on the social media scene has garnered a lot of attention for itself. The question is why. What’s so special about this website that has suddenly, even in a beta stage, managed to gain droves of followers?

We still don’t know. But after spending a little time on it, we do have a few ideas to throw around.
Visual Appeal
In the opinion of this writer, Pinterest is reinforcing the fact that we’re moving away from a text-based culture and becoming a visually based culture. The website develops conversations around categorical pictures which can be liked, commented on and re-pinned. The pictures are culled from the content that members link to. Essentially, it is a book-marking site with countless and highly creative pictures making the rounds.
Design
The waterfall of pictures on the landing page notwithstanding, the design of the website is refreshingly simple and uncomplicated, as is the navigation. Expected standard are followed with the About and Login buttons at the top right corner of the page, a “Search” box on the top left and a large Login button at eye level.
Overall, the layout and design are rather minimalistic and not in the reverse-chronology mode that Facebook and Twitter are set up for.
See? Refreshing.
User-Centric
Not that other websites aren’t, but somehow allowing their members to organize their content in the way they see fit without the traditional web-site building blocks  in place is giving people more freedom and more hours spent on Pinterest. More traffic, more site-views and many more click-throughs. It’s not a bad set up.
 
Have you played around with Pinterest lately? Let us know how your experience was!

Tiffany

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