Imagine flipping through a magazine and seeing a great picture of the Eiffel Tower. Ahhhh, Paris. To remind yourself that someday you'll take that dream vacation to France, you rip out the picture, and tack it to the bulletin board above your desk with a push pin.

Pinning a picture of something you're interested in on a virtual wall is what the hot, new social media platform Pinterest is all about. Think of it as a digital scrapbook or bulletin board to post pictures of things you enjoy.

Pinterest puts web content into sticky-note sized blocks users can organize onto pinboards that fill the entire browser screen. If you see something interesting on someone else's Pinterest page, you can "repin" it, which is the equivalent to Facebook's "likes" or Twitter's "retweets." You can also comment things others have pinned on their walls.

A few of Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp's boards

Like Facebook, Pinterest is based in Palo Alto, California. The beta testing ended in March of 2010, but didn't do much at first. By October of that year they got a big cash infusion, and toward the end of last year tech writers put it on their "best websites" lists. Early adopters pinned and posted. In the first month of this year it became huge, with a crazy, mind-blowing 2000 percent increase in traffic.

According to comScore, Pinterest's unique monthly visitors tops 11 million, making it the fastest standalone website to surpass the 10 million mark.

The average Pinterest user spends 98 minutes on the site each month, and the typical user is between 18- and 34-years old. More women than men use the site.

Pinterest is unique for several reasons. First, humans are visual and many of us are visual learners. It's easy to glean a lot of information by scanning the pictures. It would take longer to gather the same details through text or individual websites. This layout will likely influence web design by nudging sites toward conveying information visually, rather than through text. Second, it's human nature to collect things. I have a collection of cobalt blue glass, but the only way you would know that is if you were in my house. With this site, I could create a display of blue glass or antiques for all to see. Also, Pinterest has great potential for companies. Real Estate, home designers, foodies, landscape companies, and fashion retailers could make great use of this kind of display.

Nordstrom's Pinterst boards

The downside of Pinterest might be visual fatigue. How many pretty wedding dress pictures, amazing sunsets, stunning nature scenes, and adorable animals can you see before you get bored? I don't find this social platform to be as useful as Twitter and Facebook because it seems to be more about, "Hey look at what I'm interested in" and less about truly connecting with others and sharing information. But, I think this will evolve from being a personal online scrapbook into something more useful.

When Twitter started, people complained that the information on the site was stupid and pointless. "I don't need to know what you had for lunch." Now Twitter has become a breaking news source, a platform that facilitates conversations between people who might never have met otherwise, and even a tool for revolutions. Twitter grew up, a bit, and became more valuable. I think Pinterest will too.

This a site appeals to creative, right-brained people, and I'm certain they'll show the rest of us in social media some Pinteresting ways to use it.

By Linda Thomas

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