anything to go by, Pinterest could be the golden goose the industry has been looking for. According to their analysis, more than 80 per cent of pins are re-pins, which is strong evidence of the site’s virality.
To put this in perspective, consider that
when Twitter was approximately the same age as Pinterest, retweets comprised only around 1.4 per cent of Twitter’s tweets. Even more surprising is the lack of attrition in Pinterest’s cohort analysis, which, as RJ Metrics points out, “either means that no one who starts using Pinterest every stops – or more likely – that users who continue to use Pinterest become so much more engaged over time that their activities fully make up for those of any users who leave.”
Self, a fitness magazine with a recent
history of experimentation is at the forefront of Pinterest experimentation. The Condé Nast magazine has tried everything from Twitter chats to SMS-supported diet and exercise regimens. Recently adopting
a new, Pinterest-friendly tagline “I Curate My Life”, Self launched in September 2012 a new standalone site, ‘Self Curate Your Look’.
“Shopping just got social,” the site
reads. “Self Curate Your Look provides an online social shopping experience highlighting the trends of the season with curated looks from Self style experts. Browse our collection of hot items, chat about it with other Self readers and share your favourites with your friends.”
Users are encouraged to use the site’s
heart button to broadcast their personal favourites and save items to a ‘Lookbook,’ similar to Pinterest and Polyvore (Polyvore, created in 2007, is a social commerce network, specifically focused on creating style-boards from ready-to-purchase items). In a July 2012 interview Lucia Moses, Self vice president and publisher Laura McEwen said the site “enables consumers to curate their own style while aligning with Self’s editorial fashion expertise and our advertiser’s brands…[it] will also align Self more closely