Pinterest begins categorizing pins based on content, introduces a share button for mobile apps

Pinterest has announced an interesting piece of news that sees its popular social sharing site begin to categorize pins based on different types of content, while a share button for third-party mobile apps has also been launched.

“From your feed, you can tell when a pin has more information by the icon that appears below the picture,” the company explains on its blog.

Pinterest is starting out with three categories which will each get their own dedicated pins to help make it easier for users to identify the kind of content included. They will be used by an ten initial partners — including Etsy, Fotopedia and Snapguide — and the pins will also include further pertinent details for users, as follows:

• Product pins for things like clothes and furniture with pricing, availability, and where to buy (updated every day!)

• Recipe pins from your favorite bloggers and websites that include cook time, ingredients, and servings

• Movie pins with content ratings, cast members, and more

As well as affecting new pins going forward, existing pins will also be categorized to make things more organized. The move is one that will be of particular interest to brands and companies that are looking to tap into the strong community of users that frequent the site.

Companies that use the new pins are not being charged to do so, a Pinterest representative told GigaOm, but the move is being made to make links more “actionable”. That, essentially, is designed to increase engagement and traffic that brands see from the site, and its a crucial element for Pinterest as it continues to explore strategies to draw revenue from its estimated 48 million monthly users worldwide.

Pinterest says that “this is just the beginning” of their efforts to make pins “more useful” and that we can expect to see more changes over the next few months.

One of those additional changes is the introduction of ‘Pin it’ buttons for other companies’ mobile apps, to make sharing content to the site all the more seamless. For now, that’s limited the aforementioned ten partners, but other companies can get the ball rolling by visiting the dedicated developer site here.

Pinterest users that want to enjoy the new categorized pins need to install the ‘Get it now’ button at the top of their home feed.

What do you think of the new buttons – do they improve your user experience on Pinterest?

Headline image via hydropeek / Flickr