Vlog - Pinterest in the morning

Hey there,

So apparently I hate free time. This is one of the few weekends I've had off all year, and I decide to vlog almost first thing in the morning. Actually, second. The first thing (before I realize it) is I'm going through my Pinterest followers and follow...ees(?) with a fine tooth comb in a way I haven't since receiving an invite in the spring. I figure it had something to do with the fact that Pinterest just went public and was no longer invite only.

There's an article on Huffington Post, "Pinterest Open To Public, Gets Rid Of Invite-Only Policy":

Rejoice and pin! The interweb's favorite image-sharing social network is now open to the public. 

Previously, people who wanted an account from which to share quirky recipes or photos of stylish coiffures had to sign up for an invitation and wait patiently until...(read more)

I'm actually in a group of Social Media managers where someone took it personally that Pinterest had gone through an invite-only phase. To them in made the site seem stuck-up and snooty. When I had brought up that Facebook had started out as somewhat exclusive, he thought that it made sense, in that the purpose was for communities of friends to connect with each other. I pointed out that that is in essence what an invite-only phase is (assuming that people are emailing and spamming strangers) to which his response was to shift the argument to how invite-only didn't work for Google+ once they went public.

In my opinion this was comparing apples to oranges, and in terms of driving traffic, Pinterest has decidedly established their seat at the Social Media table...but it became clear to me that this was not really a conversation, as this individual had made up his mind (for whatever reasons) to not be open to considering this site a useful tool for him, his organization, or his community.

But if YOU want to connect on Pinterest, here I am. :-)

More than anything, I'm really curious as to how the arts community is and can use this. In fact, this past week's #ArtsMgtChat was on Pinterest & Instagram. Definitely a timely chat, and I believe the transcript will be out sometime in the next week.

Anyway, I digress. If you're on Pinterest as well, please feel free to share your profile in the comments. And if you have any thoughts or questions about Pinterest, I'd definitely love to hear 'em.

- JR