Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Interest in Pinterest

OK, the last thing I want is to be left behind when it comes to trendy new sites, so I started an account on Pinterest. I've been on for about 24 hours and, yes, it is slightly entertaining and, yes, it is a terrific way to kill time, but I'm still trying to figure out it's actual purpose.

What I know so far is that you basically use the site to categorize things you see and like on the Internet. Basically a fun and colorful way to bookmark things. You create a board for each category and you name the category anything you want. You can search for things within the site that other people have already found and "pinned," or you can go to any website and pin something there. (The "pin me" feature is something you add to your bookmarks when you sign up, so that you can pin anything from anywhere.)

A lot of my craftier friends pin craft ideas that they want to do for their homes. I'm not crafty. Or things they want to sew. I don't sew. Actually, when I saw some of the things others had pinned it made me feel pretty boring!

If you look at my boards, what are the first ones I've filled in? Favorite films, books, historical figures. But still, if I didn't have these boards, would I go seeking out these sites? (Probably not.)

The good news is that I'm definitely enjoying Pinterest much more than Twitter, a site I still don't see the value in. The bad news is that it is a little overwhelming in showing me what I have not, and will probably never accomplish. So if you have a Pinterest board called "Optimistic Slackers," you can add me to that one.

3 comments:

Pamela said...

great post. first of all, i find twitter useless as well. i originally started an account for my business but never use it. waste of time. i don't care to be constantly updating what i do throughout the day. no thanks. :) as for pinterest, i do think it's fun to "pin" craft ideas, but on the other hand, i also do want to be influenced in my own crafty ideas. (with that said, i do find ideas that inspire me to make my own creations with my own spin on things.) all in all, though i think it's a pretty clever site, and my business blog benefits from it tremendously, i'll be using it only occasionally... it's just another time suck (i'm trying to eliminate distractions in my life!)

hope all that made sense. :)

Sally said...

I've never been on Pinterest and the only references I've heard about it were from crafty/sew-y people so maybe it really is best for that purpose. I'll probably never know, though.

Kristie said...

Thanks for your comments, ladies! And, yes, the more I browse around the site, the more I can see its value for crafty people, of which I am not one. Not that I don't like to be creative, because I do, but I like to channel it into different outlets, like writing this blog. :-) I appreciate your thoughts!