Unexpected Pinteresting Innovations

Honestly, the number of photo-sharing sites we’ve got today is totally stunning. I’m not even speaking of more general file-sharing sites, like 4shared or RapidShare, where users can share not only photos, but any other files, as well. I mean, the specific services, offering people to exhange their “photographic” emotions, photo-events, etc.

On the market, where you sometimes get lost, what service to choose for this or that photo to share, having got Flickr, Tumblr, yFrog, or even Twit-connected TwitPic at your disposal, it’s hard to imagine some innovation to be encountered, as all sites of such kind are more, or less similar in their entity.

Yet, I have lately found a brand-new service, Pinteresting, which presents its users at least with one unique core feature that have brought this “youngster” to the top of popularity. I’m talking of one’s opportunity to share the image, pic, or photo he/she finds worthy of viewing without copying/pasting it from one site to another, or saving it on one’s PC.

The essence of Pinterest, as its founders explain, lies in its “drag’n’drop” simplicity – you only need to add the special “Pin It” plugin to your browser and feel free to drag’n’drop any image from the Web to your Pinteresting profile to share it.

Other options also include the keyword-search option, “Like” and “Repin” buttons that work in pretty the same way, as FB “Like” and “Share” buttons.

Sounds awesome? I’d say it does.

At the same time, as with absolutely every available service, there can’t but be found some flaws in Pinterest:

1) You’ve got to be invited to become a part of Pinterest family. I’ve been already speaking about the fresh services, acting like G+, forcing you to search for invitations of such kind, but with Pinterest, the case is somewhat different.

The thing is that you have to apply to the site’s owners for membership. In this respect, I’ve been already waiting for more, than a week, and still haven’t been allowed to start “pinning” photos I like. A) The site is so popular, that the authors haven’t read my e-mail yet. B) They tend to neglect new users.

Guess, the first variant is more credible, but I feel a bit offended, really.

2) Copyright protection. Pinterest founders claim, that the initial site link, where you take a particular pic from is always stored, so you don’t violate any copyright, but what if I’ve taken any copyright-protected photo from my blog, where I had formerly put it without caring about violating copyright laws. How will Pinterest check it?


Anyway, as soon as I’m accepted in Pinterest community I’ll be able to tell you more. For now, let’s just wait a bit.

Stay cool)
Andy

Twitter Analytics vs. Follow Facebook Button - It’s a War, man!

For now, you can hardly find a person who doesn’t have an account in at least one of the popular social networks, even if you aren’t an active user. Here, it’s really obvious, why the war for users among the largest players, like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is getting tougher with the paste of time. I haven’t mentioned specific networks, like LinkedIn, for instance, on purpose, as they aren’t taking part in the general struggle, they don’t need to, as in unique niche, they’ve taken there can’t currently be found many rivals.

If you happen to wonder why I have used the term “war” for the intense competition between the social network grandees, it’s so as the introduction of the new features has almost been synced nowadays. To expain it simpler, let’s check the latest example:

1.Twitter impressed many of us with the introduction of “View My Photos Right Here” option enabling to check the users’ photos & photo albums (uploaded to TwicPic or YFrog) right at their Twitter accounts.

Twitter went farther when offered Twitter analytics feature, so that the publishers can track the amount of traffic, they acquire having integrated their sites with the service.

2.Ta-dam, Google+ has presented the beta version of Google Music (which I’ve written about in my previous post, btw).

3.A day or two ago I encountered the news about Facebook – the network is now offering Follow Facebook button, which allows the users’ follow those ppl, they aren’t even friends with, as soon as the latter allow “Subscriptions” in their profile settings.

To say, it’s strange, why the service has introduced its follow on Facebook button only now, as it’s been included into Google+ and Twitter right from the very beginning. Moreover, even the file-sharing services, like 4shared(follow 4shared option), have already added this option for their users . I honestly have no idea about the answer.

Yet, Facebook Subscriptions possess their own peculiarity, concerning the exact type of updates you wish to subscribe for (you tick photos, games, apps, etc.) and the level of importance they carry (important, most or all). This is seemingly convenient on the one hand, but on the other hand, I’d get bored to define the importance of each photo I am uploding to Facebook, for instance. It’s just a photo, not the secret code))lol


Anyway, the struggle between social networks will continue, of course. But can we now predict the ultimate winner? Hm, no)


So, we’ll c)
Andy)