Pinterest Appeals To Publishers With New Article Pins, Pushes To Become A Bookmarking & “Read It Later” Service
Only days after announcing the launch of ads, social networking site Pinterest is now making an appeal to publishers. The company is today rolling out an updated “article” …
Context & Ripple Effects
Pinterest's publisher courtship lands just days after the company confirmed it would launch ads, and it extends an arc that started earlier in 2013: the new look and pin discovery features rolled out in March, followed by May's brand-integration pins highlighting major U.S. retail brands. A February study arguing Pinterest was bigger than commonly thought — and competing to be the second most popular social network — set the stage for both moves.
The pickup on this story was unusually broad for a product update — The Verge, Engadget, GigaOM and Betabeat all ran it — reflecting how directly Article Pins tie into the monetization question hanging over the platform.
First-order effects
- Publishers gain a pin format built around articles rather than images, giving Pinterest a way to pull editorial headlines and bylines into boards and position itself as a read-it-later destination.
- The timing matters for advertisers: every additional content type Pinterest supports expands the surface where its newly announced ads will eventually run.
Second-order effects
- Richer editorial pins sit naturally beside the retail-brand pins Pinterest introduced in May 2013, strengthening the pitch that branded and sponsored placements can live inside genuine reading-and-shopping behavior.
- Read-it-later positioning pushes Pinterest toward deeper session engagement — the metric any future promoted-pin product would be priced against.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Pinterest stops being a scrapbook of products and becomes a general content-discovery layer, which forces the eventual ad format to span both commerce and editorial inventory rather than product pins alone.
The trend: Social platforms are rolling out native content formats aimed at publishers ahead of their first ad launches, building the inventory and engagement base monetization will depend on.