Pinterest: Revamped profile pages, iPad app coming soon
Austin, Texas (CNN) — You might excuse Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of photo-sharing site Pinterest, if he looks a little overwhelmed these days. — Pinterest, which encourages users to collect images of their passions …
Context & Ripple Effects
Pinterest’s image-collection service had surpassed 10 million monthly visitors within six months of launch, with average monthly time spent placing it behind only Facebook and Tumblr among social networks. That growth put pressure on the product experience as well as on unresolved concerns about users pinning images from around the web.
The profile-page redesign sharpens how members present their collections, while the planned iPad app extends Pinterest’s visual format to a larger mobile screen. Both moves target the people Pinterest says it serves: users organizing items around their interests.
First-order effects
- Pinterest users gain redesigned profile pages for presenting their collections; iPad owners are promised a dedicated app rather than relying on the existing service experience.
- Pinterest must support its growing audience across both its web profiles and the forthcoming iPad product, making the consistency of collections and identity more important.
Second-order effects
- Rights holders’ existing copyright concerns gain a broader product surface as Pinterest makes collecting and displaying web images easier across profile pages and iPad screens.
- Facebook and Tumblr, the only social networks ahead of Pinterest in monthly time spent in the cited comparison, face a fast-growing visual-collection service investing in both user presentation and tablet access.
Third-order effects
- If visual-collection services keep pairing personal profiles with tablet-first interfaces, social competition shifts toward how well platforms organize and display users’ interests rather than only their social connections.
- Copyright scrutiny becomes a structural constraint on image-sharing growth: product expansion can increase engagement while also increasing the visibility of disputes over pinned web content.
The trend: Pinterest is part of a shift toward interest-based social products that combine public personal collections with device-specific visual interfaces.