4 ms·

Pinterest Spamming Your Facebook Friends?

20 points by alpb 15y ago

bradmccarty 15y ago
As an update to this, Ben (CEO) has dropped me a line and we're going to be speaking today regarding some changes that he says Pinterest has implemented. I've not yet updated the piece, as I don't have the whole story, but I will as soon as possible.
- foobarbazetc 15y ago
  Ah yes. The changes that occur after they've grown the user base by the desired amount. :)
sudonim 15y ago
Ive been getting tons of notifications that people were now following me. To the point that I turned them off. It's surprising to find out that those people aren't explicitly following me. Even more surprising is that they are all getting requests saying I'm following them.
- jmcqk6 15y ago
  I signed up for a pinterest account and didn't even realize that I didn't have to use facebook. So I signed in with facebook, thinking that it was just going to basically use it as a login portal, and maybe to import interests. Instead it auto-followed every one of my facebook friends who have a pinterest account (and sent them an email to that effect). Within about 10 minutes, I had turned off the link to facebook, and then I discovered that there is no intuitive way to see everyone that it set you to follow. (Go to the settings page and see if you can figure it out) I have no idea why it's so popular, especially with such a shitty interface and poor communication and similarities to every other social bookmarking app that's ever been created. But I guess you could say the same thing about myspace and social networking.
AznHisoka 15y ago
I'm not praising their behavior, but can understand them doing this. In this day and age, it's almost impossible to grow an online service without doing something somewhat shady (ie AirBnb getting users from Craigslist). Of course you can cross the line. I somehow doubt this is going to cost them anything substantial though. The tech audience will know about it but the casual users will be ignorant, and just shrug it off. Pinterest's core audience are not techies.

20 points by alpb 15y ago

As an update to this, Ben (CEO) has dropped me a line and we're going to be speaking today regarding some changes that he says Pinterest has implemented. I've not yet updated the piece, as I don't have the whole story, but I will as soon as possible.

foobarbazetc 15y ago
Ah yes. The changes that occur after they've grown the user base by the desired amount. :)

sudonim 15y ago

Ive been getting tons of notifications that people were now following me. To the point that I turned them off. It's surprising to find out that those people aren't explicitly following me. Even more surprising is that they are all getting requests saying I'm following them.

jmcqk6 15y ago
I signed up for a pinterest account and didn't even realize that I didn't have to use facebook. So I signed in with facebook, thinking that it was just going to basically use it as a login portal, and maybe to import interests. Instead it auto-followed every one of my facebook friends who have a pinterest account (and sent them an email to that effect). Within about 10 minutes, I had turned off the link to facebook, and then I discovered that there is no intuitive way to see everyone that it set you to follow. (Go to the settings page and see if you can figure it out) I have no idea why it's so popular, especially with such a shitty interface and poor communication and similarities to every other social bookmarking app that's ever been created. But I guess you could say the same thing about myspace and social networking.

AznHisoka 15y ago

I'm not praising their behavior, but can understand them doing this. In this day and age, it's almost impossible to grow an online service without doing something somewhat shady (ie AirBnb getting users from Craigslist). Of course you can cross the line. I somehow doubt this is going to cost them anything substantial though. The tech audience will know about it but the casual users will be ignorant, and just shrug it off. Pinterest's core audience are not techies.