Earlier last week, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann promised that they will redesign the online pinboard’s profile page. As he stated at last Tuesday’s South by Southwest event in Austin, Texas:
“I’m so excited about it. We wanted to make it more beautiful… to make your profile different in kind than the profile you have on Facebook.”
The profile redesign rolled out to all users last March 16, boasting a cleaner and more streamlined design which was induced with some of Facebook Timeline’s element.
How the New Pinterest Profile Looks Like
With the overhauled Pinterest profile, the former five-columned page is now four-columned. However, stretching your web browser allows you to accommodate more. The left panel details your followers, while a horizontal tab on top of the profile shows the number of re-pins.
It also shows the recent pins on the page default instead of the Pinboards. A blank space on top and side are noticeable because it gives the page a less cluttered look. Pinterest’s resemblance with Facebook Timeline is its vertically oriented photos and the space for large rectangular images on top of every post.
Silbermann emphasized that the redesign will have a feature that will make it easy for users to discover other like-minded users. It will also highlight the people where their connections are re-pinning images from.
Pinterest Profile vs. Facebook Timeline
Silbermann discussed about the distinction between Pinterest’s new profile page and Facebook Timeline during the SXSW event. He also talked about the online pinboard’s old design:
“We labored over that grid. There were literally dozens of that which were fully coded. We felt like, if your collections didn’t look awesome, if they weren’t beautiful, why would anyone spend the time to build them?”
He also revealed during the event that their team is working on expanding the number of content that users can pin, including video. Other than YouTube, users will soon be able to pin flicks from Vimeo, Hulu, Netflix and other video-sharing sites. They also revealed that an iPad app and a public applications programming interface is in the works.
Although Pinterest’s popularity skyrocketed for the past six months, its first year-and-a-half gained traction very slowly. Nine months after it was launched, the site only had less than 10,000 users. However, it was able to build awareness after its users added content on their account and proudly shared it with their friends. But despite the fame that the site is getting, monetization is not a priority as of the moment.