2012/07/29

Pinterest - love it or hate it?




I believe some of you know what it is or already is a fans of Pinterest.  Truly speaking, it is a very attractive & fast growing platform that everyone can create their own pin board, easy to use, lots of nice stuff and full of fun. You can "pin" any of your favorite image found in the internet world to make your collective booklet, original source link will be attached automatically so if other people want to view it or re-pin it, they will be linked to the author's web page directly. So the overall process is not only share beautiful image within the community but also create traffic to the web page of the image owner......what a lovely idea.

But eventually problems raised, some photographer or blogger or artist just don't want this "sharing", they think it is a violation of copyright = to share their photo or artwork online (although which is already being viewed online thru' their own web site) without asking their permission is unacceptable, even the image will link back to them at last or even it's because of people love it so they want to share with others. Well, we can't say it is anything wrong because the author do have their right to what they've  posted, and it's true that there are a small group of people do make use of this channel to promote their own blog or even make money. So.......someone do hate it!

How can we get a balance? Use an html code to prevent "PIN" button work? Complain to Pinterest whenever discover your image being pinned? It seems it's more easy to do another way round, for author who don't mind this sharing that can bring them traffic as a benefit, put a "PIN IT" button in page, so "Pin fans" will know they are welcome to share what they like. In another word, "Pin fan" just don't pin if this button is not appear in the page you are viewing, respect the author's or simply send an email to ask for a sharing permission, a bit complicated, but every one will be happy.