"Very Pinterest-ink. But stupid."
Jan. 18th, 2015 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogMaybe I'm the stupid one. There are just platforms on Teh Interwebs that I just don't get, despite the best efforts of good and intelligent people to splain them to me. Tumblr will forever be one of them: Emily's had one, others link to it regularly, but it doesn't seem to have the same give-and-take of posting/responding that I recognise on news sites, LJ, even Facebook and Twitter (for all the latter's brevity and @#code-iness). You see something, but you can't say something, other than to link to it.
This call for help, though, is more about something seemingly newer, called Pinterest. I know it's photo-based, but not in the same way that something like Flickr is. Eleanor's explored it more than I have, and found it frustrating for what she was looking for: Pinterest's "boards" are the basic currency of ideas, and for subjects involving celebrities and other pop-culture things those boards can be incredibly specific. But her interest is in pursuing her renewed talent in knitting and fiber art, and that leads her into a largely undivided board-ery that's very heavy on scarves and sweaters and makes the bigger and more eclectic projects much harder to find.
Me? I just find it hard to glom on to occasionally interesting stuff.
----
Occasionally, I'll google something that pops into my head, and the image search will bring back something that's been Pinned. Such was the case this morning: I got on one of my rapid rides down the Stream of Consciousness, going from somebody mentioning Cards Against Humanity (which looks like fun but isn't it really just a riff on Madlibs?). to remembering something about Monopoly, to, finally, looking for a 70s-era National Lampoon issue spoofing the latter game which I once owned (and which I still have parts of in our Monopoly board).
Ultimately, I was able to find and preserve the images of what I was looking for; they'll get their own post here sometime soon. But the best source for them was a Pinterest link, and therein came the problem. As soon as I clicked the first of the images, Pinterest insisted on me joining up, or at least enabling their app to do all sorts of privacy-raiding stuff with my Facebook account:
Mmmmmkay. My first thought: workaround. So I obtained a handy public login from a well-known aggregator of such things, and Pinterest indeed let me in, but not without, then, getting this:
X'ing out that second box enabled me to view, and save, each of the images, but the drill repeated itself each of the seven times I returned to the well to do this.
And so, dear readers, I ask my simple questions:
- Is all this bother worth it for the stuff you will get?
- How easy is it to find such stuff, and to have others find any stuff you care to pin?
- How annoying are they if you do sign up?
And.... GO.
This call for help, though, is more about something seemingly newer, called Pinterest. I know it's photo-based, but not in the same way that something like Flickr is. Eleanor's explored it more than I have, and found it frustrating for what she was looking for: Pinterest's "boards" are the basic currency of ideas, and for subjects involving celebrities and other pop-culture things those boards can be incredibly specific. But her interest is in pursuing her renewed talent in knitting and fiber art, and that leads her into a largely undivided board-ery that's very heavy on scarves and sweaters and makes the bigger and more eclectic projects much harder to find.
Me? I just find it hard to glom on to occasionally interesting stuff.
----
Occasionally, I'll google something that pops into my head, and the image search will bring back something that's been Pinned. Such was the case this morning: I got on one of my rapid rides down the Stream of Consciousness, going from somebody mentioning Cards Against Humanity (which looks like fun but isn't it really just a riff on Madlibs?). to remembering something about Monopoly, to, finally, looking for a 70s-era National Lampoon issue spoofing the latter game which I once owned (and which I still have parts of in our Monopoly board).
Ultimately, I was able to find and preserve the images of what I was looking for; they'll get their own post here sometime soon. But the best source for them was a Pinterest link, and therein came the problem. As soon as I clicked the first of the images, Pinterest insisted on me joining up, or at least enabling their app to do all sorts of privacy-raiding stuff with my Facebook account:
Mmmmmkay. My first thought: workaround. So I obtained a handy public login from a well-known aggregator of such things, and Pinterest indeed let me in, but not without, then, getting this:
X'ing out that second box enabled me to view, and save, each of the images, but the drill repeated itself each of the seven times I returned to the well to do this.
And so, dear readers, I ask my simple questions:
- Is all this bother worth it for the stuff you will get?
- How easy is it to find such stuff, and to have others find any stuff you care to pin?
- How annoying are they if you do sign up?
And.... GO.
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 06:18 pm (UTC)you can pick any login/password you want for pinterest, it absolutely does NOT have to be linked to your facebook. and i dont recommend linking it to your facebook.
its just like any other independent website, set up a username and password, and dont forget it. it doesnt need to be ultra secure because all pinterest is, is a collection of links viewable by pictures. or conversely, a collection of pictures. no credit card info required. no link to facebook. nothing. its free.
you can make boards of any kind you like, linking from any website you want. you can upload photos from your computer and be able to see them online. it helps me organize my links, my bookmarks. and they wont be lost when your computer crashes. you can have a pinterest board of favorite authors websites. you can have a pinterest board of all the bazillion yummy looking recipes you want to try with links to the websites hosting those recipes and more photos and cooking instructions. same with crochet or knitting patterns.
if you're pinning from OTHER peoples' pins, there may not always be links to patterns or instructions or recipes. but if you can find a pattern on the internets, you can link it to pinterest.
pinterest is highly searchable. if you use the right search terms.
and if you like collecting images of funny stuff, or political snark, or encouragement, or goofy animals, or home improvement projects, or the kitchen or closet you've always dreamed of, whatever. you can find it on pinterest.
they do send emails suggesting pins you may like or boards you may enjoy looking thru, or people who have repinned YOUR pins, but you can select your email preferences to exclude that. or, if you have a junk email address for things just like this, you can sign up using that email and not worry about anything.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 06:49 pm (UTC)But once logged in trying to retrieve someone else's pin, it refused to let me do anything until I "complete the tour." Which no doubt is full of pigeonholes to stick me into, to build that elusive (and very sellable) profile of me. Good luck with that, guys.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 06:53 pm (UTC)most of the profile information can be left blank.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 07:00 pm (UTC)if you were to actually search for all those terms at once, hehehe, you might not get anything (too narrow search terms) or you might get really funny stuff.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 11:31 pm (UTC)http://www.pinterest.com/glenmarshall/
no subject
Date: 2015-01-19 10:09 pm (UTC)