It’s not like Pinterest is just gaining traction now, but recently, it has been getting quite a bit of special attention. In case you happen to only be online to read this blog, and have missed it, Pinterest is a site where users can create online bulletin boards where they “Pin” things they’d like to remember. So, if you’d like to remember that recipe for homemade hot sauce or a particularly helpful pin – how to keep your zipper from falling down (It actually works!) – you can pin it to your online bulletin boards where all of your followers can then see what you’ve selected and check it out for themselves.

Think of Pinterest like a connection of ideas, tips, places, products and inventions and you have all of these nifty boards to organize your findings. The idea of Pinterest hits the epitome of social. It’s an online gathering of your friend’s best ideas created by their friends and so on. We think Pinterest has the potential to stick around and become a social staple (or… thumbtack – get it?)

But, why the special attention? For starters, Pinterest has been generating a great deal of this attention on its own, but perhaps it is with good reason. Businesses have hit the Pinterest waves in an effort to get their services and products out there to all of those pinners. Effective, or no?

Well, here is a little breakdown, from Soshable, of just what happens on Pinterest:

• Users spend an average of 1 hour and 17 minutes on the site
• More than 80% of pins are repins (you find the zipper trick on Cote Media’s Pinterest and repin it)
• 69% of online consumers have found and purchased an item, or wanted to purchase an item on Pinterest
• Only 9% of online users have participated in a Pinterest based contest, whereas 30% have done so on Facebook (don’t run away with this stat just yet – there haven’t been many contests on Pinterest, period…)
• 80% of Pinterest users are women and 50% of all users have children
• Pinterest users spend 70% more than visitors referred from non-social channels
• Pinners love food – restaurants, beverages, recipes and other food related pins account for 57% of the content
• Other big categories on Pinterest include event planning, DIY, home design and beauty and fashion products and tips.

According to Design Week, just a couple of weeks ago, Pinterest released a new look to a select number of users in an effort to maximize visual space as well as the information that goes along with a pin. This change will make it easier for users to see prices and descriptions at a glance as well as other related pins. It will also increase the size of the photos  – and pinners really like their visual stimulation – most photos on the site are creative and well shot (so, we don’t really mind seeing them a little bit bigger.)

Earlier last month, Pinterest made its first acquisition of a site called Punchfork. The site is used for recipe sharing – which we know pinners love! Hopes are that this will boost the popular category within Pinterest and also eliminate a potential competitor.

It goes without saying that Pinterest has been moving and shaking in recent months, and we’re curious to see where it goes…