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Is it just me, or is everyone addicted to Pinterest? 

Oh right,  it’s everyone – thought so. For the select few not yet addicted, Pinterest is the social media worlds latest little darling, it’s a pin board-style photo-sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, and hobbies. It’s like a big scrapbook where users (70 million last count) share beautiful, drool-inducing pictures (“pins”). You then create folders (or “boards”), and organise your “pins” by topic.  Take Christmas for example, you search on the subject ‘Christmas Decorations’ and hundreds of wonderful pictures appear. Click on a pic and you can add it to your account. Click again and you get to meet the “pinner” (account owner), a bit like an online community; some pinner’s send nice little messages thanking you for “re-pinning” their pics.

 It’s great for writers and bloggers. You start by searching the subject you’re working on, then up pops something nice, click, yip, that’ll do nicely. But here’s the thing, you can’t help but take a peek at the pinner (after all, you feel you’ve something in common), then suddenly a whole new world unfolds (voyeurism at its best) you’re gazing at someone’s scrap book (a bit like reading their diary – only you’ve been invited), so off you go browsing their boards. Travel, click – gosh, North Cambodia, looks amazing? New York – fabulous in winter. Pugs – so cute, think I’ll buy a dog.………. And so it goes on, all that visual content inspires tons of stuff to write about. Visually stunning, but of course you can only see pics at the top level, if you drill down further you get to see the  pinners profile. There are a lot of creative people, bloggers, foodies, photographers etc., but the links take you to some pretty awesome web sites you'd probably never happen upon.

Of course it’s totally addictive, you can get lost for hours (and I often do), but here’s the thing. It’s not wasted time (really Jack?).  As I writer I’m looking for stuff to write about, half an hour on Pinterest and ideas come faster than my pen can compse.  And I know this sounds crazy, but Pinterest actually puts me in a good mood. I woke early last Saturday morning to a cold, dark miserable January day, so I grabbed my iPad for a peek on Pinterest and Wham! Up pops this picture of a Michael Kors beach tote and suddenly my thoughts turn to summer (It also inspired me to go to the gym) - Completely changed my state.

So there you have it, if you’re not already addicted, take a look -I promise you’ll love it.    www.pinterest.com

Happy Pinning!     

  

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