Social sharing applications are starting to get more intriguing as new startups formulate novel ways of letting people interact and display their interests. While Facebook and Twitter are terrific ways for bachelor’s or masters degree students to keep in touch with their friends and family, they’re not as interactive as other services when it comes to sharing. Many people are interested in what their peers are looking at, which is why social bookmarking platforms like Stumbleupon, Delicious and Reddit have become so popular. However the makers of Pinterest have taken this idea a step further by creating a visual bookmarking site that allows users to categorize web content by image.
What is Pinterest?
In a nutshell, Pinterest is a digital mind map that allows users to submit photos of products and places they find and like online. Once you’ve signed up and logged in, you can edit your profile to include interests and other information about yourself. Currently an invite-only service, those interested in signing up can request an invite either directly from Pinterest or from a Pinterest member. At present Pinterest is run by a seven person team, so resources are limited. However they are to refine the service before opening it up to the public.
How Pinterest is Different
Pinterest is fairly underground at the moment, but it’s attracted a lot of interest already from tech-savvy users and critics alike. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest gives you a number of options when it comes to discovering new content. A user can create collections of different items that they like, and other users can choose to either follow that collection or follow the likes of the person that posted them. Items posted on Pinterest can also be commented on by users, giving each collection a forum or community feel that’s lacking in Twitter.
Design and Layout
The design of Pinterest is similar to Google+ in many respects. The layout of the site strips away decorative elements and lets content speak for itself. It’s clean, simple and attractive, and is extremely fast and responsive in everyday usage. Every image post supports comment threads which you can expand by clicking on its tab. Likewise, the manner in which Pinterest is designed makes planning for events or compiling shopping lists easy and intuitive. Basically, Pinterest is a digital cork board that can be rearranged by using the built-in search capabilities to bring up new images.
Final Thoughts
Pinterest is a highly visual way of allowing users to find things that interest them in the quickest manner possible. These days, the web is moving away from search and opting for discovery instead. Thus, expect services like Pinterest to garner more interest from casual web surfers as they learn what such visual discovery tools can bring to the table. While Pinterest attracted an overwhelmingly female following at the outset, it’s catching on with techies and other demographics as well thanks to its innovative concept and design. You’ll no doubt be hearing more about Pinterest in the coming months.
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Im not really sure that this was meant to happen. However, it is a pretty great flying optical illusion! Aladdin!
Link –via BuzzFeed
Great picture of the Binary Keyboard.
Windows XP is getting old. Time to upgrade to Windows 7!
This really made me laugh. Have to love and also hate Bill Gates.
Easy Image Zoom is a jQuery plugin that allows users to zoom in on an image. Easy Image Zoom is a lightweight script that is fully customisable with several options and simple CSS definitions. It is great for projects required product image magnification.
TinEye represents a very interesting web app which allows us to use reverse image search in the web: Upload the image and TinyEye searches around the web to find the same image source, modified versions or finding higher resolutions.
I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing similar in the web right now, and can help a lot of webmasters and bloggers to find if some images they’ve uploaded are being re-used by other people. Most certainly web and graphic designers can use it to protect their work.
TinEye has indexed almost 2 billion images from which they run the comparison every time we upload an image (this web app also can use the URL of the image as well).
TinEye is also available as a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Geeks, what a special breed that is, right? Flowtown created a really nice infographic about geek’s evolution and some interesting facts.
Did you know the word “geek” is related to a term used in 1500’s “gecken” which meant “fool”? And how many types of geeks would you define? Take a closer look to the chart and don’t forget to include yourself in one of the categories:
“What Font Is” is a simple and free web app which let us know what are the fonts used in an image just by uploading it or reference the URL.
For those who had (or currently have) that desire of improving their website style, I’m pretty sure that you found yourselves in several situations when you want to find out the font used in a logo or in a different site, but you never had the chance to find it. “What Font Is” represents the easy way to get the name of that font it without asking the designer.
How to use it:
- Access “What Font Is” website.
- Upload the image you are interested (or insert the URL of that image).
- In step 2, complete at least two characters in the first stage of identifying the font.
- Once the identifying process is complete, the site will provide 100 possible fonts used in that image.
Yes, I know, 100 fonts is a big number when you are looking for just one. But still, this could be really helpful if you are stuck with a design.
There’s nothing more frustrating when you’re in the middle of Photoshopping an image than discovering you haven’t got the right type of brush or texture. I mean, the basic ones will only do for basic image editing and forget about compositions. What you need is a library full of great brushes and textures. Just look at some of the great images created above using them.
BrushEezy is a database of thousands of Photoshop brushes which you can download and install. These range from the basic for things like creating great looking skies and to the complex such as composing modern art or website design.
Most of the sets are user submitted. I seen some great ones such as funky brush stylings and even a tool to create very realistic blood spatter. Each set can be previewed and downloaded for free. The brushed tend to have at least one hundred or more in a set so you can create your perfect designs. The community also vote to rate each set so you know what they’re like to use before you download them.
This is a great Photoshop recourse and a must use for any amateur or professional.
