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The fastest growing social network in history… It’s not Facebook, nor Google+. Pinterest is the name of this site, that recently hit 10 million users. Pinterest is a “virtual pinboard”, launched as a closed beta in March 2010, but since time has passed, registration is now possible after an email request. The site really took off this winter and became a new hot topic in social media. In December it entered the top 10 social networks (hitwise.com) with 11 million total visits per week. A month later, Pinterest got in the top 100 most visited websites in the US and was named the best New start up of 2011 by TechCrunch (techcrunch.com). These facts made me curious, what is Pinterest?

“Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.” – Pinterest, “Our Mission”.

As they state on their website: “Pinterest let you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.” It is an online pinboard where users post pictures of ‘things’ they find on the Internet. Yes, that’s just it. These ‘things’ can be anything: food, decorated homes, fashion, crafts, and all the other random stuff that you can imagine. Because of the simple concept it is easy to engage in Pinterest, this could be only by scrolling through all the pictures or more actively by “re-pinning” the images, commenting on them and following other Pinterest users.

Continue reading “A pin a day keeps the crazy away” →

Social networking sites are a hot topic. For us marketing students, it is inevitable to think about the consequences social networking sites have for companies and consumers. In class we discussed some issues arising from the existence of these sites, like building brand communities, and also on this blog people wrote about it. Despite the popularity of this subject, there is one relatively new social networking site that is only mentioned incidentally, both in class and in the blog. Google+. When it was launched in July 2011, there were many speculations about how the new social platform would perform. Would it stand a chance to grow big next to market leader Facebook? How would the public react on another social networking site; will the users of these switch from Facebook to Google+ or have an account on both? Or should the first question posed here be: Will people actually start using Google+? These and many more questions were the subject of numerous blogs, articles and conversations.

Half a year later, not all the question marks have disappeared yet. However, what can be answered now, is how Google+ performed in the first half year of its existence. Last week, Larry Page announced the 2011 annual results for Google, including figures regarding Google+. With 90 million users, Google+ has already exceeded expectations. Compared to Facebook, with more than 800 million users, this number may not seem really impressive, but if you take in consideration that Facebook exists since 2004 and Google+ only for 6 months… The strong brand of Google and people already being familiar with social networking sites are obviously factors that play a role in the fast growing number of users of Google+, but nevertheless, Google+ had a great start.

Continue reading Google+: A New Channel →