Pinterest's Rite of Web Passage—Huge Traffic, No Revenue

I've never used Pinterest but I keep hearing about it and seeing posts about it, am I missing the next big social network platform?  As I have commented on in previous posts [10 Goggle+ Tips] it's getting harder and harder to manage the social networks that I am involved with.  I've actually been spending a great deal of time this week reviewing various software applications that help manage all of your networks such as MarketMeSuite, HootSuite, and TwitterFeed.  I still haven't found one for me so if any of you have any suggestions please send them my way.

I have read a few article from the WSJ that goes into some of the detail surrounding Pinterest such as huge traffic but no revenue.  And the lack of a clear plan on ow the company will even make money.

Via WSJ here

• Traffic to the website—which lets users create online scrapbooks to share images of projects or coveted products—has grown tenfold over the past six months. In January, the number of visitors on Pinterest.com was almost a third of that on Twitter.com. 
• There is one problem: The 16-person Palo Alto, Calif., start-up isn't sure how it is going to make money. 
• "Pinterest's monetization strategy isn't in the oven and it's not even off the baking table," said Jeremy Levine, a board member of Pinterest and a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners. "We have one hundred ideas but no execution as of yet." 
• After watching the growth of Facebook Inc. and Twitter—both of which grew quickly at first without having a business model—Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann said he is following the same path and will worry about details later. "My hope is that if we build a service that a lot of people use to plan and discover things, that will be really valuable," said the 29-year-old entrepreneur, a former Google Inc.employee. 

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images 

• But people are flocking to the site. Pinterest last month attracted more than 11 million unique visitors, more than double the 4.9 million who visited the site in November, according to comScore. Those who visited spent nearly 100 minutes on the site in January, compared with 19 minutes on professional social-networking site LinkedIn, it said. 
• Another concern raised by some: Pinterest's terms of use include broad language giving it the right to "sell" and "modify" its member content, creating the potential for future privacy issues. 

Also from the WSJ is a piece on 6 Tips for Tapping Pinterest's Surging Popularity

1. Create categories 
2. Use images with personality
3. Be selective 
4. Write breezy descriptions 
5. Use the widgets 



Getty Images

6. Add many links