History Of Pinterest
Pinterest began in 2009 from the creator Ben Silbermann, as a child, he enjoyed collecting things, from insects to stamps. This interests and passion combined with his knowledge in technology Silbermann created Pinterest so that people could build their collections online giving them the opportunity to share the things they enjoy (Shontell, 2012). Living in a digital era, Pinterest fits in perfectly to how people connect and share their ideas in an organised visual appealing way. Pinterest’s easy to use easy to share and search for useful and interesting ‘pins’. This simplicity and aesthetic has contributed to Pinterest’s success. Pinterest was launched in March 2010 and operated on an invitation only basis until mid-2012. In this short period of time Pinterest quickly grew to over 11.7 million users (February 2012) and was proven to be faster growing than similar social networking site Facebook. It was currently announced the third largest social networking site to Twitter (2nd) and Facebook (1st)(Palis, 2012). With this growth and success it is no surprise that it has become a powerful resource with over 21 million unique visitors a month (Compete.com, 2012) all accessing and sharing a wide variety of information. Pinterest is an interesting effective way of gathering and sharing information, each pin is linked to the original site where the information was found. This creates a perfect platform where teachers and students can share images, ideas, store lesson plans, read about current events on any topic, watch video clips and research projects, amongst many other uses relating to educational benefit and personal enjoyment.