Facebook vs. Pinterest – Friends or Foes?

Do we really need all this innumerous social networking websites and services? I ask myself this question every day and still have no answer. I’ve decided to raise this issue to find out your opinion.

Social networking websites are the way the 21st century communicates today. So it doesn’t really matter whether we like it or not, we have been involved anyway. Social networking websites opened new ways for doing business, gave a rich “soil” for advertising, social marketing and many other business tools.

Social networks formed the whole new way of life and we accept it! Society will never be the same.

To tell the truth, all these questions have raised after my acquaintance with Pinterest, the most fast growing social network service. I started to learn about it, and found very interesting facts:

• Pinterest hit 10 million US monthly unique visitors faster than any independent site in history



• 9 million monthly Facebook-connected users



• Pinterest is generating more referral traffic to websites than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined



• From September 2011 to February 2012, the monthly unique visits to the Pinterest site grew over 866%

Can’t really imagine how it is possible, but figures don’t lie! I wonder whether Pinterest will replace the present social media giants, such as Twitter and Facebook. Would they become old news for Internet-community? Players could change, but not the game.

If to compare Pinterest users to other social media giants one to two years after launch, we will see that popularity of Pinterest is growing much faster.

Considering the fact that Pinterest is still in beta testing and invite-only mode, it already has more than 10 million users. I even can't suppose how their number can enlarge after the registration will become free.

People became addicted to the social networks. Only imagine how many hours are spent on surfing the Internet and chatting with “friends” instead of living a real life with real friends! Don’t you think that an average man could become a victim of another great marketing course? How many more network services are we ready to stuff our life with?

There are too many questions that I don’t want to leave unanswered.

May be I’m making a mountain out of a molehill? What do you think about all this stuff? Leave your comments and tell what you think about all these new trends.