“We’ve been too busy to hire a press person yet,” Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest, said. Which is funny because his company doesn’t need a publicist–the public is all over it.
According to Open Forum, Pinterest is the 16th most-visited website in America with 12 million users (like me).
As I cozy up to the site, and start to see its possibilities, I want to know more about the company and its founders, sort of like wanting to know more about the director of a great film.
Open Forum has some details:
Silbermann, graduated from Yale University in 2003 and worked in DC before his westward migration. “I felt like the story of my time was happening in California,” he said, “and I wanted to be part of it.”
In November 2009, he, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp started working on a website partially inspired by Silbermann’s childhood hobby of collecting insects. (He also collected leaves.) He’d realized millions of people shared the passion for collecting – if not for the actual bugs).
“A ‘pin’ is a digital representation of an object that means something to you,” he said. “When you open the site, you should see things that you love – and be able to connect to the people who found them.”
I collected stamps, coins, baseball cards and beer cans as a kid. What did you collect? And how do you feel about pinning digital representations of the collectables that you cherish now?
In related news, did you hear about Friendsheet? Mark Zuckerberg “Liked” the Facebook app on his Wall the other day. Now, the Pinterest-like experience is blowing up.
Should Pinterest be concerned about the emergence of Friendsheet? The Facebook integration lends Friendsheet a massive leg up, but Pinterest has loyal users, who aren’t going to drop the site just as things are heating up and getting good.
Jessica Miller-Merrell notes that “unfortunately, items shared on Friendsheet aren’t easily searchable or shareable with individuals who are not within one’s network. Pinterest offers this benefit and provides a viral nature where photos don’t get lost among status updates, articles read and other updates.”
Previously on AdPulp: Pin It To Win It | I’m An Only Child, But I Learned To Share
