Is Pinterest pulling away from the gate and on the runway to monetization? If CEO Ben Silbermann is going to land his plane, now worth $2.5bn, as Paul Graham of Y Combinator fully expects him to, then now is the time to take to the skies.

The smart way, for Pinterest to start monetizing, would be to continue working with brands, which they began when they rolled out Pinterest for Business. After that came Analytics. What’s next? Brand partnerships. They are now working with some of the biggest brands on Pinterest, including eBay, Sony and Netflix, modifying content which will appeal to their customers on the platform.

Now, if you want more information – say about a movie – you click on a pin, and the information comes up in your newsfeed. According to a spokesperson quoted in Mashable, the aim is that the “community will now see more useful Pins at first glance, rather than having to dig around or click to other websites.” This is good news for a few reasons. Firstly, increased engagement time. Secondly, it is a good way to test sponsored content / recommended pins prior to charging brands for this service. Thirdly, this looks like the most logical route to generate revenue on one of the worlds most popular social networks.

Could this be the opening shot of the ‘big announcement’ hinted at when Silbermann was interviewed by GigaOM the other other week?

Pinterest is also adding the popular “pin it” button to other mobile apps, like Etsy, Jetsetter and Fotopedia, which is another push into making Pinterest increasingly mobile.

Both these recent updates, following their design overhaul, indicate Pinterest is taking active steps to monetize. So long as they follow this current format, and users react well to it, then perhaps we could soon be seeing recommended pins and sponsored content. As a Pinterest user, would that bother you? What kind of content would you like to see recommended?

Let us know in the comments.

Happy Pinning!

Pinterest offices (GigaOM).

Pinterest has recently moved into spacious, light and – naturally for such a web designed social network – stylish new office on Monday, to house its hundred plus staff in San Francisco. GigaOM reporter, Eliza Kern and Om Malik went to check out their new home, which gave them a chance to catch up with CEO Ben Silbermann.

Pinterest is not the first to make the leap from Silicon Valley to San Francisco. They are joining similar rising heavyweights (their metrics now indicate 48 million global users) like Twitter and Airbnb. Rising office, house prices, and a strong startup community make San Francisco the perfect base of operations for Pinterest.

Silbermann talked to GigaOM about where the company is going, which has managed, despite its growing staff, to have maintained a strong culture of collaboration between designers and developers. This is a vital element of its success, since it is, at the end of the day, a design-centric platform. The engineers are contributing increasingly important work developing features, like Pinterest Web Analytics, and the user-generated recommendation engine which could drive revenue in the future.

More interesting than the look at the cool new offices Silbermann granted GigaOM is the fact he will be announcing further updates to Pinterest within the next few weeks. What that could be was hinted at in the interview (which sounds like good news for brands):

“We’ve already indicated Pinterest for business and and Pinterest insights are some of the foundational things for the company,” he said. “Our focus has been to become a very valuable service.”

Pinterest offices (GigaOM).

Pinterest is directing its focus towards tablets, which like Facebook it recognizes as the “the device of the future.” Beyond that, Silbermann, clearly with an eye towards revenue, which they could generate from e-commerce in some format (hopefully without upsetting their user-base) wants to “make pinning actionable.”

Silbermann saying “We are heads down on execution,” is to be expected. It’s boilerplate as far as startups are concerned. But when it comes to Pinterest we know they mean business, which is why now is the time to double down on your Pinterest marketing campaigns.

Pinterest is pushing forward with its international strategy, with the first, and most natural localization effort focusing on the UK. Today is the first day of the #PinitforwardUK campaign, which it announced on its blog, followed shortly after by coverage in TechCrunch.

“International growth” was cited as one of the ways Pinterest would continue to expand following a further $200 million raised in February 2013. At that time the image-centric social network had an estimated 40 million users, with comScore indicating its traffic is now at 53.3 million unique visitors in March, which is means traffic has doubled year-on-year.

In order for British users to feel at home on Pinterest they are rolling out customizations designed for the audience in mind, which they explained in an email to TechCrunch:

UK Pinners and pins will be suggested to UK users on the site. Also, when a new person in the UK joins Pinterest, they’ll now see other Pinners in the UK. In addition, search results will feature more UK content. Finally, Pinterest is making sure that people in the UK can access the service in British English. We’re hoping this will lead to more British pinners discovering things they love on Pinterest.

An addicted UK-pinner, and interior designer, Will Taylor, from Bright.Bazaar kicks off the Pin It Forward Campaign, which is when 10 bloggers a day for the next 30 days will write about Pinterest and how to make the most of it.

Pinterest has already proven itself hugely successful at generating traffic for bloggers in the States. Now it will be seen if this model works, and scales easily, with customization, in the UK and Europe. France would be the next destination, based on what is learned from this first attempt to, “make Pinterest feel more natural, welcoming and interesting to local audiences.”

Are you a Pinner or Blogger in the UK? Do you use Pinterest? If so then let us know whether these changes drive more traffic to your website.

Happy Pinning!

Pinterest is a design-centric social network. One of its core strengths is how it looks. Compared to other social networks its a product of grace, beauty and elegance. Which is why the redesign it rolled out in March has now been adapted due to a user-led feedback.

Pinterest recently announced that old features, which were missed, have been restored. Here’s the features returning soon, to a Pinboard near you:

• Pinned From: Many users missed the “via” feature which allows people to see users who have similar interests, so when you click on a pin it shows you who pinned it.

• Mentions: Conveniently like Facebook & Twitter you can now mention your friends by typing “@” before their name.

• Get Social: Pinterest is keeping its pipeline to Facebook & Twitter open by enabling users to see when their friends from those social networks are also active on Pinterest.

Pinterest is also rolling out numerous improvements, which is a promising sign of things to come.

• More Notifications = Increased Engagement: One of the reasons people are so active on Twitter is thanks to their notifications, which encourages people to engage with those who follow, tweet, re-tweet and star their tweets. Pinterest is learning and adapting fast, which is why it now has an increasingly active notification system.

• Enhanced Search: Given the fact that the platform could easily leverage its users and content to create a very powerful recommendation engine its about time that search steps its game up. Now when you type in a search term other related options, including other users and Pinboards, appear in the results.

We are likely to see more updates coming soon. If you would like, but haven’t got the new look yet, you can click the “Get it Now” button at the top of the homepage.

Happy Pinning!