The Magic of Pinterest: Uncovering the Hidden Gems

I've spent a good chunk of time getting used to this app, but once I stopped treating it like a regular search engine, the whole thing clicked into place.

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📌 To be honest, the search bar is pretty misleading.

You type in a query, like 'dark anesthetic', and just start scrolling through images. The local AI starts throwing up pics that are similar to what you've liked and commented on, based on your preferences.

How does it work? Honestly, just open it up to full screen.

Liking a pic is a trigger for a recommendation. Adding it to an album is like, 'yeah, that's your vibe, here are 10,000 more pics like that'.

two types of profiles + part of the feed xa0

📌 What are these 'albums' I'm always talking about? On Pint, an album is basically the main way to interact with the platform and make your life easier. Imagine you find a pic that you love, but you don't want to save it on your phone. You can save it to your profile by creating a separate folder.

Here, they're called 'BOARDS'. You can group pics by theme or just dump them all in one place, but it can be a bit of a mess to navigate.

A board can be public (if you want others to see your albums and preferences), or private (if your profile is just for you).

Also, you can create a group board where multiple users can upload pics. It's a great way to collaborate on a project and get inspiration, even if it's not super common in the Russian-speaking community.

Working with profile recommendations📌 Alright, let's say you've had enough of the dark aesthetic and you're now on the hunt for something else. Like, how to make a beautiful salad for a holiday... or decorate the Christmas tree. There are two ways to do it:

The quick way: just type in a search for 'beautiful salads', 'mimosa for New Year', and so on. It'll give you a general rundown, but it's unlikely to satisfy your tastes right off the bat. From there, we move on to the more reliable method.The more reliable way: under any image you open, there's a whole feed of recommendations for similar and related images. Swipe through them like you're browsing a photo archive, and you might stumble upon the exact image you're looking for. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a gamble. Sometimes you find what you're looking for in a few minutes, and sometimes it takes days of browsing and saving similar images that still aren't quite what you want.And then there's the special case: you find an image that's almost, but not quite, what you're looking for. Then just tap on it, and you'll get a feed of images that are even closer in theme and color. Sometimes it's the same image in a different resolution. It's handy if the first image was small, low-quality, or the wrong format.

Standard pin📌 So, why bother with all this?

Can't you just type in a normal search and find the image you're looking for?

Or, I mean, you could go to a specialized site and find what you need, whether it's decorating a salad or a room after renovation.

Yeah, you could.

But what's the real magic of Pinterest? It's that it scours the internet for images, collects them into a feed, and uses its built-in AI to sort them and serve up what you're looking for, almost intuitively.

If you take the time to understand and sync up with its logic (which took me a while), you can use the intuitive clicks on images to quickly get what you're looking for. And here's the thing - it's not about explaining in words what you're searching for (conditional stuff, spoiler alert: it might not get it). What matters is that you grasp the platform's core, its internal logic, which is surprisingly transparent and more manageable than another image site. Plus, you can 'configure' your recommendations in your profile - but, let's just say it's a pretty specific process.

basic settings📌 So, what's the essence of this logic?

Local AI sorts images (and short videos/gifs, too) into several groups:

formatcontent (what's on the image)color paletteoccasionally, resolution (size) too.Example: you're searching for interior design in gray tones - you scroll through apartments, add gray-toned interiors to your board, like gray Pantone and gray furniture - all without worrying about format or resolution, just the theme. Pinterest gets it (helps if you label your board accordingly), and before long, it'll start sending you personalized recommendations via notifications, labeling it 'Looks like your style'. Nice. That's basically you set the tone, and Pinterest does the rest.

It's true, the suggestions can keep coming for a long time, almost out of habit. You've already done the renovation, bought all the furniture, and are living your dream life, but it still keeps throwing out new ideas, like how to paint the walls.

And there's no way to shut it down.

Except for marking each pin with a 'see less' tag. Then, after a while, it'll figure out that maybe you don't need to see those suggestions anymore.

Or you can delete the board – but that's a pretty radical move. There might be some good resources in there that you've forgotten about. It's a shame. It's better not to do that.

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📌 Apart from the nagging suggestions through notifications, which you can always turn off, boards can be useful for focused recommendations and searching: within a specific theme.

Saved images – a specific search query in themselves, which you can use without going to the main feed or searching within it. This is convenient when you have a dozen boards, and they're all about different things. The home feed is a mess in that case, while 'other ideas' – in the adjacent panel, next to the board's content – help you stay on track.

It's great for those who get distracted easily.

In our era of aesthetics that often trump content, Pinterest is full of useless but visually stunning content that can throw you off even if you're there for a specific reason.

'Other ideas' within the theme of a board you're working on help you fill it out much faster than browsing through pins with the hope of finding a gem or at least something decent.

how to make a collage📌 Pinterest can, with a huge stretch, become a sort of social network. Not just with images, but in general. You can replace galleries like DeviantArt and gallery-style platforms, and even the feed.

I'll repeat: with a huge, huge stretch.

Because it's not designed for communication, I've found that its mechanisms are geared more towards personal preferences rather than global relevance.

Occasionally, this might align. Coincidentally.

For example, I had a strong craving for a particular book, and to satisfy it, I created a board with my favorite images and a couple of collages (that's a separate feature: when parts of images come together and are combined on one canvas, rather than just being stacked in a board) – and I enjoyed it. I'm enjoying the recommendations and the updated feed with relevant content.

More often than not, I'll find a cocktail recipe that I've saved, and Pinterest will flood me with similar recipes.

But no communities have been recommended, because there aren't any. Instead, there are general topic boards and private messaging, where users can share their favorite pins with each other.

You can also follow other users who create what amounts to 'blogs': they upload their own images and short videos.

For artists, I'd say this isn't the best platform to gain traction, since Pinterest is known for 'borrowing' without permission. However, in a pinch, it's doable.

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In conclusion: Pinterest is a niche site with its own app that's perfect for finding images from all over the internet in one place and manipulating them there for collages, storing inspiration, satisfying cravings, and 👑getting stuck👑. For communication, it's not great, but overall...

My rating: 7 out of 10

I've been using Pinterest for a while now, and I have to say that it's a game-changer for me. The way it sorts images and videos into groups based on format, content, color palette, and resolution is incredibly intuitive. It's like having a personal assistant that helps me find exactly what I'm looking for.

One of the things I love about Pinterest is the way it allows me to create boards and save images to them. It's like having a digital scrapbook where I can store all my favorite images and ideas. And with the 'other ideas' feature, I can easily find more images that fit my theme and style.

Of course, there are some downsides to using Pinterest. The suggestions can get a bit annoying at times, and it's hard to turn them off completely. But overall, I think the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

One thing that I wish Pinterest had is a better way to communicate with other users. While it's possible to follow other users and see their pins, it's not the same as having a real conversation with them. But maybe that's just not what Pinterest is designed for.

Overall, I'd say that Pinterest is a must-have for anyone who loves images and wants to find inspiration and ideas. It's a unique and powerful tool that can help you discover new things and stay organized. And with its intuitive interface and personalized recommendations, it's easy to see why it's become so popular.

So if you haven't already, give Pinterest a try. I think you'll find it's a game-changer for you too.