Travel’s Problem With Pinterest
First, we’re glad Pinterest backtracked. Pinterest’s pinmeister and co-founder, Ben Silberman, is no longer asking followers to " avoid self promotion."
The CEO and his fellow pinners are saying that the Pinterest etiquette that frowned on pinning one's own content, is dead.
Originally, the fast-growing site wanted its members, as Hotelmarketing.com put it, “to share all the beautiful things they find on the web,” and eschew pinning their own content, thus the advice against “self promotion.”
But what followed was predictable: big questions about the copyright violations by enthusiastic Pinterest users who were pinning other people’s content and images, with no license to do so.
So, in a recently unveiled set of new Terms of Services, the site reversed itself, and asked its followers to go ahead, forget the previous rules of etiquette, and pin their own stuff.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the shift in policy from posting curated content to members’ own content reflects a maturing company which, in February, became the third, fastest-growing major U.S web site when its unique users jumped 52% to 17.8 million.
But here’s problem one.
Social Technographic Profiles across the board (Alpha Moms, men and women, Asian and European users, etc.), show that social media Creators - those who actually publish a blog, upload a photo or video, Tweet regularly- are a significantly smaller population than Joiners, Spectators or Inactives.
Will the shift to pinning one’s own work, rather than those of others, be too challenging to Pinterest members?
Was it less stressful, easier “to share the things you love,” which meant other people’s (better?) stuff, and not one’s own?
And could this shift to posting original content reduce member growth?
Follow Technorati