Oddly enough, only a few months ago I was lamenting the rapid influx of new social media platforms trying to supplant (or support, depending on how you looked at it) the holy trio that are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Yes, I know YouTube, Flickr, etc. all have their own history and their own niche markets, and are ready to be tapped at a moment’s notice for the right purpose. But by and large FLT (FB, LI & Twtr) are based on communicating with other members of the community. Sure, you’ve got soap-boxers on each of them, but success isn’t based on soapboxing on those platforms. The other platforms don’t really require engagement from the content creator for them to be seen by the right audience or even considered successful.
And so it was, with a bit of nostalgia for the good ole’ days of cool new platforms that I began to consider the upstarts – FourSquare (though it’s somewhat in the middle of the foundations of SM and the spawn), SCVNGR, GetGlue, Empire Avenue, etc. Each of these new platforms relied heavily on your existing digital footprint. You connected with people you knew primarily elsewhere and saw what they produced on each of those platforms. For the record – I’ve yet to find anything worthwhile about GetGlue that I couldn’t just get from posting a normal status update to FB and Twitter.
Then along comes Pinterest. Continue reading