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I don't see why Pinterest does this to themselves. My main exposure to them is through Google image search and links to their site. So my first several experie

I don't see why Pinterest does this to themselves. My main exposure to them is through Google image search and links to their site. So my first several experiences were like this. It left me with a terrible first impression. It makes me wonder if the whole site plays games and tries to waste my time. I usually don't sign up for an account the first few times I encounter a site, so in my mind it's a pretty critical time to make a good impression. Instead they annoyed me so much I've practically decided never to create an account.

wpietri 9y ago
One of the things that makes me a little bonkers is when people A/B test, find something that works well for, say, 50% of the people, and then dust off their hands and call it done. Because 50% is a lot of people, so it must be good. I'd rather that they ask, "Hey, is there something that would be good for the other half of the users?" Software being infinitely soft, we can often find ways to serve both groups. If Pinterest were a person, we'd think it an asshole, always pulling a bait-and-switch and asking us to create an account in the same brusque way. How much would it really cost them to be more neighborly?
- muzani 9y ago
  I had friends in Groupon who used this technique. They claimed that forced sign ups didn't really result in a high enough bounce rate, compared to the number of sign ups they got. Data driven does a poor job of capturing user annoyance. Someone will tolerate being screwed a few times to get a discount. But after a while, it builds momentum. Though in many cases, startups don't care. They just want to sell off their numbers and exit.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  50% is overselling the success rate of login-walls from Google Images by a lot - probably multiple orders of magnitude. And I think you're significantly misrepresenting the A/B test's goal. It's not to find what works best for the most people, it's to find what works best for the company running the test. If a login wall causes an account creation from 0.5% of people presented with the bait-and-switch, that's not compared to a 99.5% failure rate. It's contrasted with an account creation from 0.1% of people presented with the image they wanted with a "Click here to create an account" prompt in the corner, and it's five times as effective as that alternative. The same story gets repeated here over and over again regarding the email newsletter sign-up form that steals focus halfway through a blog post. Yes, they increase your traceable readership more than anything else you could put in your blog (again, counting 1% vs 0.1%) . But there is a large percentage of the population who will close your blog permanently if you use them.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Yes, I made up an example for simplicity's sake. And my exact critique is that they don't work best for the company in the long term, because the people using them are often obsessively focused on the short term metrics. The bait and switch may get them 0.5% signups instead of 0.1% for that interaction. But rarely do people ask, "What distinguishes the people who signed up? What effect are we having on the people who don't sign up? Can we serve those people as well?" As you say, the long-term effect is pernicious.
jypepin 9y ago
Agreed on this. What's surprising to meis their success despite the logged in experience not being better at all. We're getting married, so my fiancée is (obviously) using pinterest for everything - her dress, themes, you name it. And the wedding planner we work with uses Pinterest too, we (try) to share it with them so they get an idea. Even such a simple feature as sharing a board is a nightmare and wastes 5-10 minutes in every calls we have so the planner can finally find the board. Or a crucial feature as "pinning" is even bad and obstructive. Be it with the chrome addon or whatever other system. Really don't see how they got so popular and really wonder why no other competitor is entering the market and crushing them.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  My 2 cents : they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space. It does not explain why no other company has tried to copycat them though.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    Pinspire? From 2012: https://readwrite.com/2012/01/13/pinspire_the_hottest_new_startup_to_completely_rip-2/ https://readwrite.com/2012/01/13/pinspire_the_hottest_new_st...
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Shout out to the guy that runs pinboard. He posts here sometimes (regularly? Rarely? Often?), and goes into his experience running a site like that by himself.
    - aptwebapps 9y ago
      `idlewords, but that's that got to do with Pinterest?
      - kbenson 9y ago
        The comment I replied to noted "they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space" while referring to Pinterest. Pinboard is a competitor, is it not? Not at the same scale, of course, but it is an alternative, a paid on at that, and is successful.
smsm42 9y ago
> It makes me wonder if the whole site plays games and tries to waste my time. They seem to be desperate for traffic. I've been using it for a while, but recently they've sent me a wave of spam emails "suggesting" to me various content which has no relevancy for me and is not connected to anything I've been doing. I've unsubscribed from all their mails (I hope so) but now I am hesitant to even use the site again, so that I don't get more spam sent to me.
thomasz 9y ago
Most likely someone was told that his bonus depends on improving the number of sign ups. Which he then did.
zaarn 9y ago
The main exposure I get from Pinterest is only frustration. When I click, accidentally, on a pinterest link on google images, I land on a site which does not work unless I enable some javascript. Once enabled, it'll proceed to load several images, none of which are the image I look for because the google result linked to some tag or search result. After the page loaded, I might be redirected to a screen that suggests I should get a pinterest account. Pinterest is basically search result spam, it isn't what you're looking for but hey, you could send the Pinterestian Prince your data anyway!
classics2 9y ago
Pinterest has no product. They only want traffic.
xg15 9y ago
My guess is a very narrow focus on optimizing certain metrics and a mindset that encourages "growth hacking" and any other means to reach those goals, even at the cost of everything else. * They even described the design process that lead to some of their terrible UI elements in their tech blog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226029 (* which, I suspect, is the kind of mindset spammers need to rationalize their actions.)

wpietri 9y ago

One of the things that makes me a little bonkers is when people A/B test, find something that works well for, say, 50% of the people, and then dust off their hands and call it done. Because 50% is a lot of people, so it must be good. I'd rather that they ask, "Hey, is there something that would be good for the other half of the users?" Software being infinitely soft, we can often find ways to serve both groups. If Pinterest were a person, we'd think it an asshole, always pulling a bait-and-switch and asking us to create an account in the same brusque way. How much would it really cost them to be more neighborly?

muzani 9y ago
I had friends in Groupon who used this technique. They claimed that forced sign ups didn't really result in a high enough bounce rate, compared to the number of sign ups they got. Data driven does a poor job of capturing user annoyance. Someone will tolerate being screwed a few times to get a discount. But after a while, it builds momentum. Though in many cases, startups don't care. They just want to sell off their numbers and exit.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
50% is overselling the success rate of login-walls from Google Images by a lot - probably multiple orders of magnitude. And I think you're significantly misrepresenting the A/B test's goal. It's not to find what works best for the most people, it's to find what works best for the company running the test. If a login wall causes an account creation from 0.5% of people presented with the bait-and-switch, that's not compared to a 99.5% failure rate. It's contrasted with an account creation from 0.1% of people presented with the image they wanted with a "Click here to create an account" prompt in the corner, and it's five times as effective as that alternative. The same story gets repeated here over and over again regarding the email newsletter sign-up form that steals focus halfway through a blog post. Yes, they increase your traceable readership more than anything else you could put in your blog (again, counting 1% vs 0.1%) . But there is a large percentage of the population who will close your blog permanently if you use them.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Yes, I made up an example for simplicity's sake. And my exact critique is that they don't work best for the company in the long term, because the people using them are often obsessively focused on the short term metrics. The bait and switch may get them 0.5% signups instead of 0.1% for that interaction. But rarely do people ask, "What distinguishes the people who signed up? What effect are we having on the people who don't sign up? Can we serve those people as well?" As you say, the long-term effect is pernicious.

jypepin 9y ago

Agreed on this. What's surprising to meis their success despite the logged in experience not being better at all. We're getting married, so my fiancée is (obviously) using pinterest for everything - her dress, themes, you name it. And the wedding planner we work with uses Pinterest too, we (try) to share it with them so they get an idea. Even such a simple feature as sharing a board is a nightmare and wastes 5-10 minutes in every calls we have so the planner can finally find the board. Or a crucial feature as "pinning" is even bad and obstructive. Be it with the chrome addon or whatever other system. Really don't see how they got so popular and really wonder why no other competitor is entering the market and crushing them.

on_and_off 9y ago
My 2 cents : they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space. It does not explain why no other company has tried to copycat them though.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  Pinspire? From 2012: https://readwrite.com/2012/01/13/pinspire_the_hottest_new_startup_to_completely_rip-2/ https://readwrite.com/2012/01/13/pinspire_the_hottest_new_st...
- kbenson 9y ago
  Shout out to the guy that runs pinboard. He posts here sometimes (regularly? Rarely? Often?), and goes into his experience running a site like that by himself.
  - aptwebapps 9y ago
    `idlewords, but that's that got to do with Pinterest?
    - kbenson 9y ago
      The comment I replied to noted "they are popular because they are pretty much the only ones in that pretty specific space" while referring to Pinterest. Pinboard is a competitor, is it not? Not at the same scale, of course, but it is an alternative, a paid on at that, and is successful.

smsm42 9y ago

> It makes me wonder if the whole site plays games and tries to waste my time. They seem to be desperate for traffic. I've been using it for a while, but recently they've sent me a wave of spam emails "suggesting" to me various content which has no relevancy for me and is not connected to anything I've been doing. I've unsubscribed from all their mails (I hope so) but now I am hesitant to even use the site again, so that I don't get more spam sent to me.

thomasz 9y ago

Most likely someone was told that his bonus depends on improving the number of sign ups. Which he then did.

zaarn 9y ago

The main exposure I get from Pinterest is only frustration. When I click, accidentally, on a pinterest link on google images, I land on a site which does not work unless I enable some javascript. Once enabled, it'll proceed to load several images, none of which are the image I look for because the google result linked to some tag or search result. After the page loaded, I might be redirected to a screen that suggests I should get a pinterest account. Pinterest is basically search result spam, it isn't what you're looking for but hey, you could send the Pinterestian Prince your data anyway!

classics2 9y ago

Pinterest has no product. They only want traffic.

xg15 9y ago

My guess is a very narrow focus on optimizing certain metrics and a mindset that encourages "growth hacking" and any other means to reach those goals, even at the cost of everything else. * They even described the design process that lead to some of their terrible UI elements in their tech blog: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226029 (* which, I suspect, is the kind of mindset spammers need to rationalize their actions.)