Pinterest is a social networking site where you can “pin”, catalog and share ideas. The website is based in Palo Alto, California and emerged as one of the top 10 ten social networking sites of 2011. The site debuted in March 2011 and the traffic has been increasing at an alarming rate. In the week ended on December 1, 2011, the site received nearly 11 million total visits.

A large following is being built up and growing daily. This incredibly addictive site has given rise to a growing demand for a Pinterest application on smartphones. This would enable users of Pinterest to keep in touch with their favorite site on the go. With growing popularity and versatility of Android platform an Android app for Pinterst seems imminent. Before we join our voice for this demand let us have a quick look at Pinterest.

Board and Pin

Pinterest can be described as a simple and stylish way to organize and share your bookmarks and make it visual. Each “board” is virtually a category (like “recipes”, “hobby”) and each “pin” is a link or picture that you want to share with your peers. While browsing online you may find cool stuff and pin them on your corresponding board. Firefox users can use Pin It button on the bookmarks toolbar or you can go to the Pinterest website. With growing popularity of the site, some online stores and blog are adding their own Pin It button that youcan hit for pinning. You may also pin pictures directly from your computer.

Browsing

You can also browse other’s board and look for cool stuff, re-pin, follow or like pins of other users. It is similar to like and share features of Facebook. Facebook users can easily find what their friends are pinning and browse their boards from Pinterest. If you like pins of a user you can follow the pins of that user in future. You can also follow a specific board. If you follow a person you will see his or her recent pins on homepage of your Pinterest.

Driving traffic

You can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your site. Browse through different boards and find out the boards that are related to content of your site. If you are running a website on seafood then you can create a board on seafood and link your site. Find out interesting recipes, news and events related to seafood and pin them on board. The goal is to increase the number of followers. Simply linking your site would hardly interest anyone. Use pictures on your site and pin visuals to attract browsers.
Pinterest mobile – a significant move

The website has recently launched Pinterest Mobile, which is an HTML5 application. This is seen as a significant move to reach out the mobile users. Anyone can access this site from web browser of the phone. The website promises to update this version with new features.

Finally

While Pinterest Mobile may not be the app that Android users were looking for, it is a significant first step. It also signals that the website is trying to break the barrier of platforms and trying to reach out to a larger user base (using Windows Phone 7 or BlackBerry). By now, you may be getting Pinterested!

About the Author:

Roxanne P is a Freelance and Staff writer who writes informative & creative articles on Television and Technology for various technology related companies including broadband expert. Her expertises are in writing articles related to internet providers, Satellite TV deals, PAYG dongle, etc.