Friday, January 18, 2013

Why "Pin Now, Read Later" is a Mistake

Hello Lovelies!




I want to post today about a website I love. {Pinterest}
But not about the millions of great pins that we all drool over. More, the pins that are misleading or link to dead-ends.

One in particular I wanted to share.
Recognize this?


This particular pin, with the same or similar caption, is obviously a "pin now, read later" type. Because no one seems to actually read the blog post that states clearly this DOES NOT replace helium, and DOES NOT make the balloons float. It's the same baking soda and vinegar project all of us did at one time or another in grade school people. Did it make the balloons float then? Of course not. Why do you expect it to do something differently now? I cringe to think how many birthday decorations were thwarted by the many people who failed to actually read the article.

Other countless pins will exclaim some cool new way to do something, then as you expect to be led to a cool blog article, you are disappointed when it just leads to a copy of the image on a blank website.

Another example that went through a few months ago were the offers of gift cards ranging from Starbucks to Apple. Not one of those people who re-pinned thought to see if the pins were scams, which they ended up being.

So this is a shout out to my Pinterest loving readers: Don't "pin now, read later". Read as you go. Learn something new. This will not only help clean up your little corner of Pinterest, but it will make you less of a pinning zombie while you actually explore the pages that the pins originate from. It took me a little trial and error to get to this point, but if we can spread the word, Pinterest will be an even better resource than it already is.