Pinterest S-1(sec.gov) |
Pinterest S-1(sec.gov) |
I've started wondering if they're using something like StyleGAN to general endless image variations that exist nowhere else (and have no source or context on pintrest) in order to pollute google image results.
[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=p...
Forgive me for being blunt, I just think it’s a bit obvious: they have grown through means other than someone going to google.com and typing “Pinterest.”
I can think of a dozen reasons why that would be the case. Google Trends does not match 1:1 popularity, usage, or growth of all products.
Personally, I’m only a casual Pinterest user and have no stake in this, but the service has gotten a lot better over the last couple years.
The main search is definitely the mySpace trajectory:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=p...
...but you have found the more accurate guess-data.
Pinterest have presumably done well with Google's carousel that shows image search results at the top of the list.
I am not sure the HN crowd is target demographic. Who here is looking for a new outfit to buy and wear? Who is wanting inspiration for some 'infinity band' tattoo?
People here just end up on Pinterest wanting images for projects, no intention of pinning boards together.
Why does this happen?
Pinterest have built a body of content that is essentially evergreen and well documented as far as images go. Nobody is interested in last week's news but images don't have this problem. Hence they get the image search results traffic.
Beyond that they do have their regular crowd looking for inspiration on clothes, home trinkets and what not. The search result blessings keep them relevant even if nobody outside the target demographic is actively using it.
That said, this is US data if I am not mistaken, and Pinterest seems to have a lot of activity happening internationally. Other comments state they have more MAU outside the US than within.
The conversation turned to wife-> her mom “did you see my nursery board? I pinned some inspo” and no explanation is needed she already had the app installed and didn’t need to go google “Pinterest”.
Also, the women in my life love it for inspiration that definitely drives purchasing behavior. I can’t speak to whether Pinterest is monetizing that opportunity to its fullest but I certainly feel like it’s established itself as a place to research a future purchase which we all know is a valuable position to be in. I use my wife’s account occasionally to look up ideas for a home renovation or landscaping ideas. It helps. But I feel they’ve made some poor UX choices bordering on dark patterns. And with that, they are probably their own biggest risk. Eventually they will do something to totally alienate and piss off their user base.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pinterest.com
Maybe as someone else mentioned, much of this is international growth? (india, Brazil?) If it is, then the traffic is a lot less valuable.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=pinteres...
It's not hot and new any more in the USA but it seems to be spreading world wide
A universal truth in the social network space. Unfortunately, not even FB can really extract much value outside of North America.
In all of advertising. Non-US users remain extremely hard to monetize across the board.
For example, about 10 years ago, Google higher market share in Europe than in America. It was something like 95% in Europe and 90% in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if that's still the case.
Of course Google's not a social network, but my very limited understanding says that Internet products generally translate well from America to Europe. I'd be interested to know where that's not true!
Unfortunately for whom?
Our ability to maintain and increase the number of visitors directed to our service from search engines is not within our control. Search engines, such as Google, may modify their search algorithms and policies or enforce those policies in ways that are detrimental to us, that we are not able to predict or without prior notice. When that occurs, we expect to experience declines or de-indexing in the organic search ranking of certain Pinterest search results, leading to a decrease in traffic to our service, new user signups and existing user retention and engagement. We have experienced declines in traffic and user growth as a result of these changes in the past, and anticipate fluctuations as a result of such actions in the future. For example, in the first quarter of 2018, Google de-indexed our keyword landing pages, which negatively impacted traffic and user growth in the quarters that followed. Our ability to appeal these actions is limited, and we may not be able to revise our search engine optimization (“SEO”) strategies to recover the loss in traffic or user growth resulting from such actions. Changes in policies or their enforcement may not apply in the same manner to our competitors, or our competitors’ SEO strategies may be more successful than ours.
Seems like a horrible business to invest in when you're so utterly at the whim of someone else you have no control over.
Google is probably petrified of fixing problems like this because the EU will ding them for another few $billion if they do.
"Following this offering, we will have two classes of common stock: Class A common stock and Class B common stock. The rights of the holders of Class A common stock and Class B common stock will be identical, except with respect to voting, conversion and transfer rights. Each share of Class A common stock will be entitled to one vote. Each share of Class B common stock will be entitled to 20 votes and will be convertible at any time into one share of Class A common stock."
I only know Pinterest from annoying search results where it immediately asks you to sign up for an account, and I immediately leave - does anyone have any insights into how on earth they are spending almost a billion dollars in a year?
Why do you need so many people? A breakdown for each department would be interesting
Says it all, really.
Genuine question: is it normal for the CEO of a company in the US to have no notice period?
The fact that I don’t know anyone who uses it does not imply that Pinterest is unpopular. I just know so few women.
I used it just yesterday to get some ideas for landscaping my yard.
"The limited empirical evidence on the technology and emerging growth companies that are the target of these regulations is insufficient to support the adoption of new regulations, as the evidence that is available indicates that the most recent group of dual-class companies may have performed as well, if not better, than those with a single class of stock". [0].
[0] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/04/15/are-dual-class-co...
Pinterest definitely should have been penalized, and I suspect at some point they will be.
It's the worst outcome for solving a problem which could be naturally aced on the web. Instead we got a cancered platform causing headaches to everyone.
Full rant: https://twitter.com/bourquinary/status/1026877583772790784
> We depend in part on internet search engines to direct traffic and refer new users to our service. If search engines’ methodologies and policies are modified or enforced in ways we do not anticipate, or if our search results page rankings decline for other reasons, traffic to our service or user growth, retention or engagement could decline, any of which could harm our business, revenue and financial results.
> We depend in part on internet search engines, such as Bing, Google, Yahoo! and Yandex, to direct a significant amount of traffic to our service. For example, when a user types a query into a search engine, we may receive traffic and acquire new users when those search results include Pins, boards, Pinners and other features of our service that cause the user to click on the Pinterest result or create a Pinterest account. These actions increase Pinner growth due to signups of new users and increase retention and engagement of existing Pinners.
> Our ability to maintain and increase the number of visitors directed to our service from search engines is not within our control. Search engines, such as Google, may modify their search algorithms and policies or enforce those policies in ways that are detrimental to us, that we are not able to predict or without prior notice. When that occurs, we expect to experience declines or de-indexing in the organic search ranking of certain Pinterest search results, leading to a decrease in traffic to our service, new user signups and existing user retention and engagement. We have experienced declines in traffic and user growth as a result of these changes in the past, and anticipate fluctuations as a result of such actions in the future. For example, in the first quarter of 2018, Google de-indexed our keyword landing pages, which negatively impacted traffic and user growth in the quarters that followed. Our ability to appeal these actions is limited, and we may not be able to revise our search engine optimization (“SEO”) strategies to recover the loss in traffic or user growth resulting from such actions. Changes in policies or their enforcement may not apply in the same manner to our competitors, or our competitors’ SEO strategies may be more successful than ours. In addition, some of these search engines are owned by companies that compete with various aspects of our business. To offset the impact on our user growth, we would need to increase our investment in other growth strategies, such as paid marketing or other initiatives that drive user acquisition, which may cost more and be less effective. Any significant reduction in the number of Pinners directed to our website or mobile application from search engines could harm our business, revenue and financial results.
There are several exceptions:
1) you are the CEO or a top exec in a VERY large company. In that case your personal lawyers are involved in the negotiation of the contract, and it is assumed that you know what you are doing. But even in those rare cases, the law in on your side. 2) a non-compete COULD be part of the sale of your company (I wrote YOUR company, you own it, and your are not merely an employee, even senior employee).
Don't confuse that with the IP rights you give up to the company (legales like like we own EVERYTHING you have created or will create). You can still quit tomorrow with no notice given and work for whomever you feel like. Don’t use that IP, and don’t take ANYTHING with you (no files, no customers lists, no lines of code, no presentations, no emails). Then you are fine.
If you have a fiance, more than likely she a Pinterest board or is following multiple for ideas.
In practice companies don't fire people left and right, and people don't live in constant fear of being terminated if they're providing value to their employer, or their employer isn't toxic.
That has almost nothing to do with being laid off or not. Most layoffs kill whole departments or divisions and the contribution of the little guy matters not a single bit.
It maps closely to Instagram's steady rise, and Snapchat's slow demise.
If the company monetizes, but in ways that the citizens don't like, they can choose to not use services provided by the company. If they agree with the monetization practices being adequate in exchange for the services provided, they can use the services. Whereas if the company doesn't monetize in the region, they can't afford to provide services anymore, then even those people who are totally cool with the monetization strategy cannot use the services.
TL;DR: if you don't agree with the way a service is monetized, you are free to not use it (obvious limitations apply for things that are essential to living in modern society, like internet or banking; FB doesn't fall under this). Just because you are not ok with the cost associated with using that service, that shouldn't serve as a solid ground for denying service to those people who accept the cost.
edit: is anyone able to comment how the accounting for this kind of thing usually works?
e.g. if a company spent $1m on R&D, can it arbitrarily add a line item on its balance sheet for around $1m of research outputs as some flavour of intangible asset? (this is obviously not a very accurate way to account for things in cases where the R&D failed to produce anything of utility, or produced much less utility that the R&D cost) or are the assets produced by R&D (if any) meant to be fairly valued in isolation from the cost to produce them?
The point of my reply was that saying that the US has more money does not explain the fact on why people in the US pays more for software than in the rest of the world, which I believe is the key issue when it comes to a social network ability to monetize international markets. You have rampant software piracy in Latin America, Asia and Europe. At least in the EU, things are better for business software. China is so notorious for piracy that a former head of Microsoft R&D for China said: "In China we [don't] have problems with market share. The issue is how do we translate that into revenue.".
Nowadays software companies in China have found success by giving away free games and selling coins and whatnot. So my whole comparison was that if China has a bigger economy (or smaller/similar if you feel offended by that fact), then how do you explain that even large companies like Microsoft are struggling in that market.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
So, why invest at all?
I trust that they still want to increase their enterprise value.
America has the benefit of decades of intense consumerist propaganda to fend off the evil reds, while the biggest emerging markets are often very vocally against "Capitalism" (even if they would all love to own iPhones)
Digital advertising becomes more valuable the better you are able to track digital intents/impressions/sales through all your channels.
a) Money. Most places do not have a lot of surplus wealth, and only a few places in Europe do. Consumers need to have extra money to spend on 'stuff' beyond the very basics, i.e. a consumer oriented economy for a lot of ads to work.
b) Fragmentation. This is a two-sided problem. Most countries are very small, have their own laws, regs, and networks for everything that are very established. So the unit cost of marketing to advertisers etc. is going to be higher. And things move slower in most places.
c) Behaviour. American culture is pop culture. Sometimes it's hard to explain that one. Americans move according to trends. Social mores change quickly depending on whoever has the biggest megaphone: news, broadcasters, even advertisers. It's a place where commercial interests drive aspiration, even morality - witness the amount of virtue signalling in ads, i.e. Nike's recent campaign etc.
W. Europe, the other lucrative market - they are really traditional in their ways. They already have their day full of things to do. Germans leave work at 5 and go and drink a specific kind of beer at the local pub. They play certain kinds of sports. They buy certain things. In the UK, I've been to 'rich people's' homes and they have these ancient toasters. But they work! They don't just 'buy new stuff' it's not part of their culture. It's the same in most of the rest of the world.
The rest of the world is really just not designed as a big commercial vehicle.
Moreover, you have to understand why PPP exists in the first place. Let me give you a hint: it has to do with arbitrage.
Being 40% bigger can qualify as “far bigger”.
Source?
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-gdp/
United States 21,410,230
China 15,543,710
All those organizations you mention all agree USA is still on top for nominal GDP.
I unfortunately think you’re projecting with the people getting offended bit.
This is an anecdote, but I was looking at developer jobs in Europe and the salaries are pathetic. 65k Euros for a senior engineer with a 50% tax rate? Are you fucking kidding me? I can make 250k in the US at a 35% rate. It’s absurd.
No wonder Europe has a brain drain problem...
Besides the northern countries, the tax rate is not 50%. Most countries either have a flat rate that is well below that or have a system where you pay in boxes. Like %30 over the first 20k, then %47 over the remainder etc. On top of that, many countries have countless schemes that result in tax deductions. Like owning a house gets you a discount.
In almost all cases, the effective tax rate falls well below 50%.
Any reference to the european "brain dead"-problem?
https://voxeu.org/article/european-brain-drain is fairly comprehensive, but the idea is that highly skilled people generally go where they're paid the most for their skills.
I'm guessing you mean brain drain. Or is there a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease epidemic that I missed? : )
So you are right with the nominal distinction, and if I was wrong about that, then the downvotes probably reflected that more than any opinion of mine.
Of course you don’t need all the people in the country to have (disposable) money since their populations are so big.
And companies like PinDuoDuo in China have shown they can become $30B public companies with a profit in 2 years by mainly targeting poorer or more rural Chinese.