Founded in March 2010 by CEO Ben Sibermann and two partners, Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo-sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, and hobbies. Users can browse other pinboards for images, “re-pin” images to their own pinboards, or “like” photos.  Pinterest allows users to save images and categorize them on different boards. They can follow other users’ boards if they have similar tastes. The most popular Pinterest categories are home, arts and crafts, style/fashion, and food.  For first time ever, Pinterest will report revenues in 2014, to be derived from a new strategy of charging advertisers to promote their products to the site’s millions of hobbists, vacation planners, and do-it-yourselfers.  More than 20 percent of online adults in the USA now use Pinterest, a firm now valued at about $ 3.8 billion and having more than 240 employees.  Years ago, it would have been hard to imagine a business being highly valued with zero revenues, but that has been the situation from 2010 to early 2014 with Pinterest.

Source:  Douglas MacMillan, “Pinterest CEO’s Next Act:  Sell Ads,” Wall Street Journal, January 22, 2014, B1.