Salon.com > Pinterest

Pinterest’s sterling redesign

Wed, 08 May 2013 20:10:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- Don't worry, Pinterest fans: Your sprawling virtual pegboards of wedding dresses, handmade jewelry, craft projects and food porn haven't changed dramatically. They're just easier to manage.

The popular link- and photo-sharing website has rolled out an update, one offering people simpler navigation and new ways to arrange their boards to fit their needs. Although the haphazard spirit of Pinterest remains, the site is much less overwhelming.

I wasn't a Pinterest user before, so the redesign gave me a chance to take a good look at the site for the first time. Before that, I had refused to be sucked into yet another form of social media. I figured I didn't have much use for it.

In the months since I started testing out Pinterest's new look, though, I've found the service helpful in organizing and sharing my continually expanding recipe collection. And it's fun to check what other people around the world are looking at and to see which strangers choose to follow me or respond to what I'm sharing.

Although it is not a replacement for Facebook or Twitter, and doesn't pretend to be, it is a beautiful and vast world with more than 25 million users around the world.

Second coming of the Myspace

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:44:00 +0000

Myspace is running on its third life (after being rebranded from MySpace to My_____) under the management of Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake. The social network, now oriented toward musicians, has released a preview of the site's features. According to Complex, here's what users can expect:

A preview video of the new Myspace shows that the new version of the site will sport a completely overhauled new look that seems to take a few cues from Pinterest, Tumblr and About.me. Users will be able to log in via Facebook and Twitter in addition to creating their own native profiles. The new profile features a large background image with a smaller profile photo in the upper left-hand corner. A stream of photos and status updates is arranged to the right of the screen in a manner that will be familiar to anyone who has used Pinterest.

In addition to the renewed focus on user profiles, the new Myspace will also allow users to create, share and discover music playlists, find music events, and, of course, interact with celebrities. There are also new tools for artists designed to help them communicate intelligently with their fan base(s).

Watch the trailer below:

Obama goes viral, wins Twitter

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

When Barack Obama blew America's mind by declaring his support for same-sex marriage Wednesday, he explained that his views on the subject had long been "evolving." But while evolution is a process that can take millennia, social media moves with considerably more swiftness. However long it took the White House (nudged though it was by Joe Biden's Sunday blurt that he was "absolutely comfortable" with marriage equality) to get to that place, it took no time at all for Obama's sentiments to become a meme.

It's no accident that the president's change of heart happened to make for a perfect sound bite. Nearly as fast as Barack Obama, leader of the free world, could utter the words "Same-sex couples should be able to get married," to ABC News correspondent Robin Roberts, @barackobama -- the president's not-nearly-as-popular-as@JustinBieber Twitter account -- was announcing "Same-sex couples should be able to get married." As of Thursday morning, it had been retweeted over 56,000 times and counting.

Pinterest’s gender trouble

Wed, 02 May 2012 11:45:00 +0000

It's one of the biggest online success stories of the decade, attracting a staggering 10 million monthly uniques faster than any site in history. But what makes the rise of the image-sharing Pinterest surprising isn't its stampeding growth, or its sudden ubiquity on your friends' Facebook walls. It's the fact that it's a raging success story with an unmistakably female bent.

Even a cursory glance at Pinterest makes it easy to see why so many of its critics have been dismissive about it – specifically about its girlishness. In Salon earlier this year, Jude Stewart called the site "basically online scrapbooking." Slate's Farhad Manjoo summed it up in a feature called "Cupcakes, Boots, and Shirtless Jake Gyllenhaal," wherein he admitted, "I just don't get it." And when I first looked at Pinterest, my initial impression was "social networking for cat ladies."

Pinterest’s anorexia dilemma

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:25:00 +0000

It's a lesson that keeps getting learned on the Internet: You can't make bad things go away with a flick of the delete key. So when, last month, instant meme generator Tumblr and beloved cat lady destination Pinterest updated their terms of service to discourage pro-eating disorder sentiment, they did not, in fact, actually cure eating disorders.

The attempt to tamp down the shadowy pro-eating disorder community has been raging nearly as long as the community itself has existed. It's a well-intentioned effort. But every new opportunity for social media is also a new opportunity for like-minded spirits to converge in anonymity. You don't have to look far online to see the vibrantly sad and scary pro-ana (as in anorexia), pro-mia (as in bulimia) worlds alive and well and starving themselves to death.