10 September 2015

Pinterest for Chess

A few days ago, my post about Other Shareaholic Services, quoted Shareaholic,

Based on our Social Media Traffic Report, Pinterest drives more traffic to sites than Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit combined!

Driving traffic to my own site isn't one of my highest priorities and until now I hadn't paid much attention to Pinterest. Maybe it was time to look into it. Although a query on 'site:pinterest.com chess' pointed to all sorts of interesting pages, the site insisted that I sign in before going any further. Another day, another password, another email confirmation; I now have well over 200 login IDs, most of which I rarely use. Such is life on the web.

The Pinterest page on Wikipedia informs,

Pinterest is a web and mobile application company, which operates an eponymous photo sharing website. Registration is required for use. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. It is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and investors. Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann summarized the company as a "catalog of ideas," rather than as a social network, that inspires users to "go out and do that thing."

What's its business model? Wikipedia again:-

Pinterest also allows businesses to create pages aimed at promoting their companies online. Such pages can serve as a "virtual storefront". In one case study of a fashion website, users visiting from Pinterest spent $180 compared to $85 spent from users coming from Facebook. These users spent less time on the company's website, choosing instead to browse from the company's pinboard. [...] Globally, the site is most popular with women. In 2012, a report found that 83% of the global users were women.

I like to post regularly about chess art -- 'caissart' I call it -- and Pinterest offers much. Here's a screen shot of a query on 'chess art', showing other users' Boards.

What about chess quotes? The first quote Pinterest serves is:-

The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment. - Bruce Lee

That's not bad. How about the second?

You can tell somebody the rules of chess, but that doesn’t make them a chess player and certainly not a master. They need to play in order to develop a full understanding of the strategies that can be deployed.

Associated links lead back to the web source of the quote. Maybe it's time to look a bit more at this site.

No comments: