Pinterest third most popular network, beats Google +, Tumblr

If you tweet, friend and blog, chances are you also pin. Pinterest - the newest kid on the social media block - is now the third most popular social network after Facebook and Twitter. [caption id=“attachment_269763” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Pinterest has beaten out sites like Tumblr and LinkedIn: AP”]  [/caption] A report released by digital marketing firm Experian Marketing Services, based on visits by American users for the month of March, shows that Pinterest had 104 million unique visits in March alone, putting it ahead of sites such as Tumblr, LinkedIn and Google plus. One caveat however, is that the data in the report does not include mobile traffic, so sites such as Twitter, which sees much of its traffic from smartphones and tablets, may take a hit in this ranking, according to Matt Tatham, a spokesman from Experian. Pinterest allows users to create virtual pin boards of images from around the web under various categories like “favorite vacation spots”, “The best restaurants in India” or “Dresses for little girls”. Many attempts have been made to explain and understand its fast growing popularity. A demographic breakdown of its users shows that unlike on other social media networks, more than 60 percent of Pinterest users are women and they like to pin images that are deemed as being largely aspirational - houses they would like to own, dresses they would like to wear and food they wish they could eat. According to this article by a Pinterest user, “Pinterest—like Martha Stewart, Etsy, or newspaper articles expounding on the joys of artisanal pickles—allows us to quickly satisfy those typically feminine, domestic expectations that our careers and schoolwork have rendered impossible.” Another write up says, “I don’t think it is coincidence that women make up most of the userbase of Pinterest. We seem to excel at escapist fantasies and the constant reach towards unattainable perfection.” According to the Daily Mail Pinterest’s popularity also shows that as a business model exclusivity still works to some degree. “The site calls for users to request invitations, or be invited by friends, and while it does still extend those invitations to whomever wants one, the company does make the desperate wait to log on for two or three days before they can start highlighting their favorite things.”, it says.