Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Pinterest Doppelgangers Develop



          
I found an article on the Web from the Boston Herald.
 
            Since the invention and phenomenon of Pinterest we are now seeing a vast amount of copy cats. Lots of websites now want to imitate Pinterest's web design utilizing the “flat wall of tiled images, which “de-emphasizes text and focuses on photos”.  Pinterest has started a trend, and it appears that the websites implementing this format are doing well with it. However, some sites are simply changing their format solely for the purpose of trying to be as cool as pinterest and weren’t really having web design problems. Some websites that have copycatted Pinterest are Boston-based Springpad, All Women Stalk, Gentlemint for men, Sworly.com, Thinng.com and Chill.com. Lady Gaga even has a beta for a new social network site; it’s intended to be called little monsters it’s only in testing as of right now. The article refers to this situation as "Pinspiration". 

I decided to take a look at each of the doppelgangers mentioned; I wasn’t impressed with All Women Stalk, or thinning.com. Lady Gaga's isn’t out yet so I couldn’t judge that one. However, I liked the Gentlemint website because it still had its own niche, it’s geared toward men. I loved the Sworly.com webpage they did apply Pinterest formatting concept, but there site is still much different than Pinterest. Sworly.com is a music site where you can “discover, listen, and share music. Chill.com is a bit of a mixture of Pinterest and Sworly as far as its layout goes. Chill is videos just like Sworly, but it’s not music it consists of various YouTube videos. All Women Stalk and Thinning to me were almost exact replicas of Pinterest at least a first, maybe second and third glance. 

Here is a screen shot of Sworly.com one of the sites the article considers a doppelganger of Pinterest. 



After reading this article, it’s clear that Pinterest is on to something with its concept, not only do many people follow pinterest but many businesses mimic pinterest as well. In the article a Mike Schneider states “Pinterest has made the Web a lot more beautiful,” and remarkably it has, I know I’d rather browse Pinterest and those like it than a web page with a bunch of text, how about you?  In fact since I started this blog I find myself on Pinterest entirely too much. I’d go as far as saying its addicting. If you haven’t joined Pinterest try it out, but I’d suggest waiting until schools out for the summer. 

 To view the article click this link: Pinterest Shapes Web Design Wave


See you next time,

Danielle Swanson


2 comments:

  1. Hi Danielle, I just wanted to say how I think it's great that we are both reporting on Pinterest and that we found 2 different articles, I found mine before even looking to see what you had written about and was grateful that they were different. I like your article, it kind of goes along with mine about copyrights, how others can make web sites like Pinterest but not be in violation of copyright laws. And yes I totally agree I spend way too much time on Pinterest now that I have been on it since we started this Blog!!
    Take care,
    Jenelle :)

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  2. Hey Danielle!
    I have heard of pintrest, but never tried it out. I know of another site that looks like that, except it's (mainly) for fashions and designers, but I use it for quotes, much like Pintrest. Its called Polyvore. Have you heard of it? I don't know which came out first, but I still like using it 'cause it's really simple. I'll probably check it out over the summer when I get really bored. Check out my quote collection on Polyvore here: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/collection?id=982405
    See ya!
    ~Aurora

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