Pinterest

When you were growing up, did you ever have a bulletin board on a wall in your bedroom? I did.

My bulletin board was the place I kept mementos of my favorite places and events, photos of things I wanted to try or be, colors I loved, clothes I wanted, people I admired -- anything and everything that inspired me.

When I joined Pinterest, it was like being a kid with a bulletin board all over again.

Pinterest is the hottest new thing on the Internet and after playing around with it for a while, I understand why. It's a place to discover new things, collect things you like for later reference and share what you find with your friends.

I've been bookmarking and saving web links for a while with other sites like Evernote and Delicious, but Pinterest is much more appealing because it focuses on strictly on visuals. With other types of bookmarking, you have to think of a name or description that will remind you easily of exactly what you kept and why. With Pinterest, you see a photo first, then you can access the link to the site attached to the visual with a second click. Having themed "boards" of visuals makes it so much easier to quickly scan through a collection of stuff and grab exactly what you need.

Here's a real life example. I'm visiting a friend in a couple of weeks, and we love to cook together. Part of our weekend will include a group dinner at another location, so we needed something that could be transported in a crock pot or casserole dish and would feed a crowd. I went straight to my "Food" board on Pinterest, found 3 possible recipes and emailed the links to my friend in about 10 minutes. It would have taken me about 3 times as long with a more traditional type of bookmarking site.

If you'd like a more detailed introduction to what Pinterest is and how it works, check out this link. It's written with branding and marketing in mind but it's straightforward enough for a new user to understand the site as well.

Happy pinning!