[koeselitz]

A counterpoint:

Lately there's been a lot of discussion about some difficulties Facebook has had in the advertising sector. Jason Bigler of Google was snarking about this earlier today. [1] I realize this is largely because all the snarks come out of the woodwork before an IPO, but to a certain degree - they're right. Facebook just isn't a place that puts people into a "transactional mindset." People go to interact, and they kind of seem to like pictures, but only insofar as they're sharing pictures that are (a) funny or (b) very personal and of themselves or their pets.

Pinterest is different. People go on Pinterest to look at pictures of stuff that they like or that they think is cool. Yeah, I can't get into the Pinterest thing either, but I know a few people who do, and I have to say that that model - getting people to amass collections of stuff they think is neat or cool - is much, much more likely to put people in an buyer mindset than most social networking models.

And as a few people have shared above, it seems as though advertising on Pinterest has a lot of momentum; many companies have reported extremely good results. My feeling is that this will continue. The whole metaphor of Pinterest seems to be extremely similar to shopping and acquiring - collecting stuff, putting it on your page, browsing other people's collections.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/gleeful-google-exec-takes-a-s...

[cageface]

But are people posting photos of the kinds of things that sell in large volumes and generate a lot of revenue? The attraction of a lot of these sites is that they initially feel like a cosy insider community but that feeling fades fast as they become mainstream. This is happening to FB already.

Are people going to be posting and clicking on pictures of ketchup or cleaning products or life insurance policies?

[koeselitz]

Given the (sizeable) advertising contracts Pinterest has already landed, people are posting and clicking on pictures of awesome clothes they like and might want to own, and other luxury stuff like cooking utensils; movies and books also seem to be pretty popular, and I've seen a lot of character diagrams from TV shows and fantasy series.

Yeah, there are certainly random things like ketchup and cleaning products and life insurance policies that don't lend themselves well to selling via images on the internet. But that has nothing to do with Pinterest; and given some time, somebody will probably figure out the angles for life insurance and ketchup.