[mtjl79]

Normally I am not one to comment on fundraising, and I have stayed out of the whole "bubble" debate. But, honestly, this is really getting a little out of hand now. The whole funding situation is getting really frothy.

$1.5b pretty much prices them out of any real acquisition now for the most part. So is Pinterest going to go IPO?

Where do they go from here? That's the question of the day.

[joering2]

I won't tell you where they going. But I know the more people will pin unique, cool photos they stumbled upon, the more artists, photographers and content owners will demand either their share, or take down.

In this another debate of "is this a bubble", something interesting came to my mind. I thing the issue here is that any online real estate that made it big, made it huge because they used the latest technology available. Think YouTube. When it started, barely anyone knew how to program flash and have a container to upload 5MB file and it could be coded in different movie codecs and youtube would read it anyways. This was definitely pushing the envelope! The technology was new, but it let you display videos and thats what counted. I think with the new technology coming in, like HTML5, etc, there will be new websites coming out and grabbing huge audience based on this new technology. So in other words, whomever is betting $1,500 millions on Pinterest, is like betting that nothing new will be invented over the web. This is like buying GeoCites, because nobody is sitting in garage developing WordPress 1.0. On buying MySpace because there is no Facebook. I hope you get my drift...

[fruchtose]

I think the natural path for Pinterest will be to merge with Groupon, another shopping-related site and one that has survived an IPO--at least for now. This new site will combine the deals of Groupon with the design of Pinterest. Users will coupons, which are automatically pinned to the appropriate boards with automatically chosen photos.

Of course, Pinterest is all about design, which is why Groupon will also have to acquire Instragram. This will allow the merged company to select the right photo for any coupon and, if necessary, saturate the yellows, unfocus the background, and add a creatively misaligned border. That night your friends enjoyed the half-price alcohol they bought at Jerry's Drive-In Liquor will look extra cool when the photo has been processed through the "1977" filter. And on the plus side, Groupon/Pinterest/Instagram gets to keep it for their next liquor-oriented deal, giving them free advertising material. It's too early to tell what this new supergroup of startups will be called, but I want some credit if it becomes Groupstagram.

I'm only half-kidding, of course.

[CharlieA]

I don't know about the half kidding...it seems like you might legitimately be on to something there in the area of private deal "experiences" for you and close friends.

But I'm thinking, more so than Pinterest it's closer to "Path" where you and your small network of close friends collectively get a deal (at Jerry's liquor, lovely example) then post cute photos of your night/experience (sans the trip on the porcelain bus) which become public on "Jerry's Drive-In Liquor" or whatever, and exposes the deal to other people in the private networks of those who were in your private network... a sort of "local viral" marketing effect which works as advertising and as the regular "look how awesome my saturday night was" that we (what? just me?) use Facebook/Instagram for anyway.

I think it perfectly combines the innate desire to show off and receive value while maintaining an air of exclusivity plus the whole validation thing, from strangers and friends alike.

[inthewoods]

Get bought by Amazon or Google in my mind - they have stock to do it, and it would benefit either of them (although less for Google). I could see Amazon buying them as, essentially, infrastructure for driving ecommerce sales.

[joering2]

they just raised a round on 1.5B valuation. Just exactly how much money you think Amazon or Google would be willing to spend on this deal? I would assume that if they just raised that round, the would not talk about anything less than 10X. I don't think neither Amazon nor Google would pay 15B for a company, regardless how much traffic they are getting. For that amount, and knowing Google, they would rather build their own product.

[inthewoods]

Why would you assume it would have to be 10x? But I agree with your broader point that it would have to have amazing metrics to support that valuation on purchase. Instagram, from my point of view, was as much as defensive move as anything else - not sure there would be the same driver here.