Pinterest now 3rd most popular US social networking site

Pinterest, a pinboard-style social photo sharing website, is now the third most popular US social networking site behind Facebook and Twitter.

A recent report by Experian, a US marketing services company, underscored the snowballing traffic to Pinterest which is largely driven by girl-power.

Launched in March 2010, Pinterest lets users upload images known as “pins” and organize them by creating theme-based pin boards for their hobbies, travels, pets, wardrobe, etc.

All photos are discoverable by other users as all pins become part of the one big pin board that is Pinterest. Users are welcome to “follow” other users or to “like” or repin others’ images, leave a comment, and to share their pins on their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Videos can also be pinned, but this two-year-old social bookmarking site is predominantly a picture platform.

Pinterest has proven to be especially popular among women made obvious by the fact that the uploaded images are largely related to home décor, crafts, holidays, fashion and food.

Experian said majority of the site visitors are female (60 percent) who are mostly between the ages of 25 and 44. Among them is Michelle Obama, the 48-year-old US First Lady, who started pinning her happy family snaps this month. Other famous pinners are Oprah Winfrey, Ellen de Generes, Jessica Alba, and Martha Stewart.

From July last year to January this year, Pinterest had accumulated nearly 21.5 million total visits, which was 30 times the number of total visits during the six-month prior.

In addition, Experian reported that Pinterest enjoyed a 50 percent increase in traffic from January to February 2012 and recently came out as one of the top 10 websites in the Hitwise Social Networking and Forums category.

While Facebook keeps its strong lead of seven billion visits by the end of March 2012, Pinterest’s 104 million visits came near within Twitter’s 182 million. Not bad for a site that was still in beta just two years ago.

Another report, this time by ComScore, noted 11.7 million unique US visitors to Pinterest last January, making it the fastest site ever to break through the 10-million unique visitor mark.

ComScore’s State of the US Internet report puts Pinterest’s growth at a remarkable 4,377 percent last year compared to other established social platforms that posted modest growth such as Tumblr (168 percent), LinkedIn (67 percent), Twitter (58 percent), and Facebook (four percent).

Experian believes Pinterest is one if not the hottest social media start-up since Facebook and YouTube and the one to watch especially by retailers.

“The popularity of Pinterest is a result of the next phase of the behavior we have seen online over the last few years. Users are increasingly more comfortable with recommendations from friends or other users when they come through social personalization,” the Experian report stated.

“While Facebook continues to be a social juggernaut, Twitter is also growing, and Google+ is making a serious go of it. A new class of social tools, including Tumblr and Pinterest, continues to enable customers to compile and share their interests online, and businesses should tap into that trend,” the report added.

Founded by Ben Silbermann, Pinterest is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and inventors. It definitely offers something for everyone, but draws the line at nudity.

It also encourages and usually automatically provides the link source for pictures that users upload from the Web to protect copyrights. Once you have been invited to join Pinterest, it will e-mail you the “Pinterest Etiquette” of how to be respectful, authentic and above all, how to credit your sources. But these are not enough to prevent copyright problems to be pinned — pun intended — at the start-up’s door.

One basic argument against Pinterest’s method is consent — indicating and giving credit to the original source of an image does not mean there’s explicit permission from the owner to pin it.

Things like this are now part of Pinterest’s birth pains and the reason why the Silicon Valley’s hottest company has just hired former top Google lawyer, Michael Yang, as its general counsel. - By Alma Buelva (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)

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OpenERP web – How to add custom functionalities to the sidebar

I’d like to show how you can add more functionalities to your sidebar on OpenERP web 6.1.

The interesting code from web_export_view module looks like this:

photo credits: domsense

1.    First  (line 3) define your module’s namespace.

2.    then extend (line 7) the sidebar object

3.    and override ‘add_default_sections’ method (line 9)

4.    then we add our new action with its callback to the ‘other’ section using ‘add_items’ function (line 37)

Unfortunately the sidebar is not so modular at this point. As I commented into the code, if we had a registry for sidebar sections/actions we could just define ours and register it. But, for the time being you’ll need to override the original method and maintain by copy&paste the “real default” sections/actions (for the original one, have a look at the core web module).

If you need help on  how to create your web module, check openerp_bootstrap.

A ‘must-say recommendation’: use Firebug to debug your javascript experiments, it will save you a lot of time 

Source: http://planet.domsense.com
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3 Tips for Writing Great Content

Great content is an essential part of a website, but many writers make minor mistakes that cost them readers and incoming links. Here are a few quick tips to help you write better content and build traffic for any website.

1. Break up your content

This article is written as a list because web users respond well to broken-up content. Big blocks of text are intimidating, so you can keep your readers’ attention for longer by using subheadings, incorporating pictures and breaking up large paragraphs into several smaller paragraphs.

You should also try to avoid excessively long sentences, but to make your content as readable and accessible as possible, don’t obsessively count sentence length. Instead, use variety. Follow up long sentences with short sentences and vice-versa. You’ll write with better clarity and your readers will appreciate the effort.

2. Don’t focus on keywords

Many web content creators make the mistake of filling their text with a particular keyword for search engine optimization purposes. Google, Bing and other search engines will notice if you spam keywords and will penalize your website.

It’s alright to include a desired keyword from time to time, but keep keyword density to about 1-3 percent. Focus on making quality content that engages your reader. Nothing will help your SEO as much as viral shares and incoming links from other websites, and the best way to gain that type of attention is to focus on readers instead of search engine spiders.

3. Write consistently

Keep your readers coming back by providing them with new content. If your website has a blog, make sure that you follow a consistent post schedule. However, you should never create posts if you have nothing to say. Look for interesting takes on your subject that will bring in organic search traffic. Get as specific as possible.

As you build up a content library, you’ll start to naturally attract readers. Get their input, answer their questions and interact as much as possible. You’ll optimize your website for search engines by building this type of a community, and more importantly, you’ll improve every piece of content’s chances of going viral. By engaging your readers and picking good topics, you can drastically improve the quality of your content and attract a loyal audience.


Source: http://www.searchenginefather.com


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