Friday, March 2, 2012

Inside Pinterest's numbers

Despite the company's reluctance to release numbers, studies of Pinterest's external and internal behavior are coming to light.

The most revealing stat was something I had anticipated, and so was gratified to see confirmed: Over 80% of all pins (images collected by users) are re-pins (images found from within Pinterest, rather than from outside sites).  This means that new content is brought into the 'Pinterest Community' by only 20% of its users. The remaining 80%, in effect, 'vote' on how popular and viral that content will become.

A small minority, then, controls what the majority sees. But the majority does decide what of that content will rise to the surface. (See related: Pinclout)

It is also being demonstrated that the Big Kahunas of the Pinterest Community are its early adopters. Newer members are not showing the same commitment. There will be exceptions to this, of course. Despite this, Pinterest users in the aggregate show a level of continued involvement well above that of the average user of other social tools (Twitter, etc.).

Another stat that stands out is the tremendous breadth of linkage that comes out of Pinterest. Esty gets the lion's share of links, and this is understandable. Many artisans and small businesses who use Esty to sell their wares are setting up shop on Pinterest. After that comes Google Image Search, which is again understandable. Google is the prime means of finding images today, though eventually I expect Pinterest to reach a point where it supplants it. After that come Flickr and Tumblr, both geared to the aggregation of visual content.

Yet none of these major, well-known sites has more than 3% of all Pinterest's links. This is truly a long-tail phenomenon that reaches deep into the web.

Source: RJ Metrics

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