Pinterest the new kid on the block or an online privacy nightmare

1,560

April 5, 2012 by admin

home1

Well, so i finally got to look more deeply into the so called Pinterest, everybody seem to think its the next great thing, but take a deeper look and it may just be the same old social media idea packaged for us differently, with a big clause

Either way they have managed, among so many to be some of the very few  to create a buzz in the social media arena

So what is Pinterest:

Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections and or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest is similar to earlier social, image bookmarking systems based on the same principle.

So where did they spring up from

Pinterest is affiliated with both Twitter and Facebook, which allows users to share and interact with a broad community. Founded by Ben Silbermann, of West Des Moines, Iowa, the site is currently managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors. It is one of the “fastest growing social services in the world. Read more about it here

So what is new?
I will start with what is not:

1. Bookmarking urls –  lots of social bookmarking sites exist
2. Storing, managing and sharing files –  lots of sharing sites exist

So again what is new?
Nothing –  To be blunt Pinterest is a social bookmarking and image sharing site  but they have managed to make the experience  more graphical and exciting, and you got to give them credit for that.

So with all the hype comes the critics

it is suggested  the hype is just the hype, the reason why facebook towered over most social networks like myspace and face-pic etc is their effort in re-inventing themselves, pushing technology and ideas to the limit and keeping up with what their users enjoyed most, i.e they where the first to introduce a robust developer section for people to build on top of their framework.

A testimony by a bloggers reveals that pinterest may not be all it’s hyped up to be in terms of creating leads and driving more traffic. See this article
“Is Pinterest Traffic Worthless?” by Copyblogger.

But more importantly is the copyright marvel, which they have drafted up in order to completely own  all your uploads and hold you responsible for legal fees if you do decide to challenge them on copyright infringement.

A photographer who is a lawyer puts this into perspective when she completely deleted her account after going through the small print which most of us never read

See this article
“A Lawyer Who Is Also A Photographer Just Deleted All Her Pinterest Boards Out Of Fear?” by businessinsider

Also a suspicious user on their facebook page  points this out see his comment below

Pinterest has joined the big players in social media, so they may need to clean up their act in making their terms and service as transparent and fair as possible.

Are they here to stay or another “of the moment Site” – time will tell.

As at the time of this article all facts where checked and known to be correct.
April 2012

Related posts:

  1. Integrating social media into your site – facebook, twitter and google+

Category News, Social Media | Tags: , , ,

»
«