pinterest for the win!

see my pinterest here.

i am a sucker for being part of a group. especially if they make it seem exclusive and cool and perhaps a little bit secret. oh, and if they flatter me when they send the invitation, hello, count me in! so when i got an email from pinterest this morning, complimenting my pinboards, and inviting me to apply to be a translator for the danish version of pinterest, i was like, sign me up, baby! so i dutifully clicked through and applied. a few hours later, i was approved and invited to my first secret facebook group. i think the difference with secret groups is that the rest of the folks in your timeline can't see what you're posting and commenting on. the whole thing makes me a little bit giddy.

but really, what it is is pinterest being very smart. they've flattered their users into doing the expensive translation job for them. for free! all by making it seem cool and exclusive. there is much to be learned from this (can you say co-creation?). they get a much better translation from native speakers (and folks like me who are picky about language and have lived here so long that i'm pretty good at it as well). they create loyalty among users. and they don't pay for it. i predict we'll be seeing a lot more of this from businesses in the not-so-distant future.

a little while later, someone in my facebook feed shared a status of someone from their feed who is pissed at pinterest. pinterest's terms forbid "pin to win" contests and they will go after users who are engaging in such things. and frankly, i think that's awesome. pins should be there because they are things people love, not things people are trying to win (tho' one might argue that you wouldn't be trying to win something if you didn't love it). and i like the purity of it. if those i followed suddenly started pinning shit from etsy (because etsy just opened their doors much wider to shit) instead of moodily-lit figs, just because they wanted to win it, i would be one unhappy camper. i do love me some moodily-lit figs, not to mention triangles, don't get me started on triangles (they're the new circle).

so, to recap. pinterest flattering their users (including me) into doing their enormous translation/localization task for them = score. and cracking down on "pin to win" greedy bastards = score. so it's pinterest for the win!