Pinterest

The new social network photo sharing service is a pinboard-style website that allows users to create a theme-based image collection of their choice. Users manage their boards by adding events, interests, hobbies, and more with original or shared images.

The site is managed by Cold Brew Labs with owners and creators Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp. It is funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors.

Registered users manage their pinboards by uploading original images that they can save, sort, and share with other users. Pinterest is basically a personalized media platform where users can also save other user’s content to one of their own “boards” using the “Pin it” button.

To create a Pinterest account, a user can sign on with an invitation from another registered user or request an invitation from the main site.

For both guests and Pinterest users, there are currently four main sections to browse: everything, videos, popular, and gifts. These subcategories provide an organized system of browsing, which helps fellow users to connect and share like-interests.

There are also some terms of service that have given pause by a number of critics which include: “By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sub-license, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services”.

Although these terms may give pause to some potential users, it has not discouraged the more than 100 million users to date and has become one of the more standard social networking sites businesses and organizations have added to their marketing tool bag.