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I have been actively collecting and 'curating' Pinterest internet resources for my ACRL workshop and recently read an article on Business 2 Community about a "News" section being tested by a few users. In her blog post, Pinterest Testing New News Section, author Sue Reynolds notes "the test began January 16 and Pinterest is asking for feedback from users via an online form" (Reynolds). As these test are generally conducted with high traffic sites, I was surprised morning to see the "News" feature on the IRC Pinterest site after login earlier this afternoon. |
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The news feature appears in upper left portion of the followers area (top image, highlighted in blue), where a list of activity and suggestions of pinners to follow usually reside. In its place actual boards where the images were re-pinned are presented. At this point, only two boards are listed and pins from boards followed surround them. A red "see all news" button is located below the bottom board helping to indicate where boards stop and pins start. I found the news display area, a mixture of pin boards and individual pins, visually confusing. That said, there are two other ways to view news that are definitely more appealing. |
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If you select the "see all news" button, it links to a new tab in the profile area (middle image); if users return to their Pinterest home page, the same news tab is visible next to followers (bottom image) and it links to the news area as well. While I do not particularly care for the news in the feed area, I do like the opportunity to view a collection of boards from other followers indicating where my image was pinned. It provides an interesting look at similar pins and collections making it simpler for me to find more resources. |
More information is available on Pinterest's Help Center using the What is News? link: "We're currently testing a new feature with a small group of pinners called News. If the Recent Activity on your home feed and the Activity tab on your profile are missing, you are part of this test." Included was a link to a Google form asking how often I use Pinterest (1-2 times per week), if I liked the news feature better than the recent activity feature (not really), and if I found the news feature useful (yes, but not located on the recent activity area). It will be interesting to see when this feature becomes available to all Pinterest accounts.
