BSTRACT
Over the past decade, social network sites have become ubiquitous places for people to maintain relationships, as well
as loci of intense research interest. Recently, a new site has
exploded into prominence: Pinterest became the fastest social
network to reach 10M users, growing 4000% in 2011 alone.
While many Pinterest articles have appeared in the popular
press, there has been little scholarly work so far. In this paper,
we use a quantitative approach to study three research questions about the site. What drives activity on Pinterest? What
role does gender play in the site’s social connections? And
finally, what distinguishes Pinterest from existing networks,
in particular Twitter? In short, we find that being female
means more repins, but fewer followers, and that four verbs
set Pinterest apart from Twitter: use, look, want and need.
This work serves as an early snapshot of Pinterest that later
work can leverage.