For my Management of Social Media class, one of my assignments is to compare two similar social media technologies. While the example given was social bookmarking, and I'm generally loathe to just follow the example, the Delicious/Pinterest dichotomy came straight to mind. I couldn't not write about this--I have too much to say, though I promise to keep it short.
I am an avid user of Pinterest (click here to check out my boards!) and have been since December 2010. I love that it's visual--there are so many beautiful and inspiring images! I could (and have) literally scrolled through pages for hours. The visual nature is especially nice because most of my pins are food. Curtis and I regularly plan our meals based on what we've seen on Pinterest lately (he has a great set of boards too). And nothing ruins a great recipe like a lack of a photo!
The only problem with Pinterest's visual MO is that if you have a page you want to save that doesn't have a picture, you can't pin it to your boards. I mean, apparently you can, but that's a weird cheater way. For this reason, Delicious is better for saving non-large-photo pages.
The other thing I like better about Delicious is that you can have private stacks. Pinterest does not (yet) have an option to create a private board for your eyes only, which is kind of a pain if you're wanting to pin Christmas gift ideas or other secrets. Apparently they're "thinking about" adding a private option, but we'll see. For now, all my secret bookmarks are on Delicious.
I could go on and on about the merits of each site, but what do y'all think? Do you use one or both of these? Which do you prefer?
I have only just started using Pinterest (this class pushed me over the edge), but I'm loving the visuals. I always need a picture to go with my recipes so I have spent way too much time on the Food & Drink board. I also have created a "Kindle bookshelf" so I can have that visual feel of the covers missing from my Kindle.
ReplyDeleteHowever it is true that certain things just don't translate to that visual arena. For example my stack of job search articles I have on delicious. You could make a Pin board of them but the pictures almost tell you nothing (some are just clip art). I have also created stacks of websites to use for school projects and I doubt anyone on Pinterest wants that flooding their "follow" feed.
I'll be interested to see if private boards change how Pinterest functions or if people will just hide gift idea boards and boards that are just too personal or if everyone will just lock everything down. Which I think would hurt the site as a whole.
Yes! The food! Sometimes I'll repin things I never plan on making, just because they have a pretty picture. :)
DeleteI swear I've wasted more time on Pinterest while in school than on all other sites combined. Its addictive. I love the concept of utilizing pictures to display what there is to explore and like the options to browse through just the people you are following as well as all of Pintrest. Needless to say I also spend (or waste sometimes) a lot of time on the site. And fortunately have never run into needing a private board to hide presents - it helps that I pin so much stuff my sister and mom would never be able to figure out if it was supposed to be a present or not!
ReplyDeleteHowever after briefly wondering through Delicious, I must say that I do like the tagging that is done by each posts so that you know what you are getting into before clicking on the link - they help explain just what you're seeing in the picture. And while Pinterest has categories that you can browse, they are fairly broad and don't always clearly represent the boards that people choose to put in them. I don't necessarily like that results on Delicious don't have to have pictures, but that's just a personal thing.
Unfortunately it looks like I'm gonna be spending my time on another site!