Is Pinterest the social e-commerce answer?

posted by Dave Allen, Leave a Comment

I wrote about Pinterest recently #, or more accurately, I wrote about being a man who uses Pinterest as I felt there was a rather sexist, elitist, East-West-coast-big-city snobbery aimed at it’s users. One male commentator supplied damning evidence of its “uselessness” because he surmised that the majority of its users were based in “fly-over country.” Who says American education is suffering..?

With news this morning that Pinterest raised $100 million from its backers #, perhaps that bright spark will think again, as this values Pinterest at $1.5 billion. Maybe having an audience that lives and shops in “fly-over country” isn’t such a bad thing?

And shopping is the key to understanding Pinterest’s valuation. The company may be able to provide the answer to increasing e-commerce on the social web. Facebook has been struggling in this arena #

The latest investment round was led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten and Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani has this to say:

“While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining.

“We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.”

So, Rakuten sees the potential of Pinterest users, who clip and share items, being motivated to make purchases of those very items they are sharing.

And here’s Pinterest CEO Ben Silberman:

“Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal.”

I sense that the Rakuten investment isn’t about looking for a return on their money by selling Pinterest to the usual suspects – Facebook, Amazon, Google – but I could be wrong.

And let’s be clear here – don’t confuse Pinterest with a social network like Facebook. That’s not accurate. It’s more akin to Tumblr than Facebook. When using Pinterest you are technically following people’s passions, not those people themselves. Profiles on Pinterest (here’s mine #) are pulled from Twitter for instance, and can be left as simple as that. There is no “timeline” but there are ample opportunities to share everything that’s compelling to you. Think of it as Twitter on steroids where you can post an image with an embedded link and you have the ability to write 500 characters about the story behind the image. Here’s another example #.

And brands will be able to let their followers purchase their goods.

Maybe now we will see brands rushing to ensure that their websites are mobile-friendly and have a seamless mobile e-commerce solution, because I’d hazard a guess that a lot of Pinterest traffic is coming from the iPad.

And above all, your brand site better be Pinterest-friendly.

Creative destruction in contemporary culture

posted by Dave Allen, Leave a Comment

The New York Times’ A.O. Scott and David Carr wrestle with this one..

The web is its own thing: thinking about a Seth Godin post

posted by Dave Allen, Leave a Comment

Or, expecting more from Seth.

I know I’m walking on thin ice here as he has no doubt thousands of avid readers and supporters, but I find myself having to be a little critical of Seth Godin’s post today.

I’m not often taken by Seth’s daily dish #. There’s nothing wrong with the advice that he serves up, it’s just that there’s a lot of stuff that is irrelevant to me and my work. Relevance is important, because as he points out in a list in today’s post which I’ll get to in a minute, one should “Focus on the scarce resource online: attention.” And of course, just like that TV show, if I don’t like what I’m seeing I can change the channel.

I followed a Tweet that led me to today’s post from Seth, and it caught my eye because I’m always irritated by messages that emanate from social media marketing companies or SEO companies that promise the earth but actually offer very little, and at first his post struck a chord with me. And by the way, I’m not suggesting that Seth is even remotely in the same camp as those folks I just mentioned. Still, I felt a discomfort with his list #.

It’s a comprehensive list and was no doubt crafted by Seth to suit his audience, one that he surely knows by now, although I feel that the title is relevant only to those who want to do that (its title is How To Make Money Online.) And those that want to do that will no doubt be spurred on further after reading his post, for better or for worse. For everyone else, I’m not so sure of its value.

As I went over the list a few times I found it becoming more meaningless with each pass. It felt ridiculously outdated. And there’s my, hopefully mild, diss on Seth. It would also be a diss on any readers who think that the list is important in 2012 though.

Here’s why: Do we still not understand how the web works and how people use it? In 2012? Do we still need these self-help style lists? If we do, then unfortunately we haven’t come very far since the advent of the world wide web in the 1990′s.

We’ve had Web 1.0, and we’ve had Web 2.0 but there won’t be a Web 3.0. We now have Mobile. Seth’s list may have better served his audience if he’d made that the subject and the content.