The Real Life Test for Startups

Recently, I saw Steve Rubel tweet that he didn't think Pinterest was particularly viable compared to some other startups he's seen.

My reply was that Pinterest will succeed because it affects my life and the life of my friends offline. One friend who's a teacher used an idea from Pinterest to teach her class about the different states of matter. I've used a few ideas from there to do my hair and make games for my kids to play.

Pinterest crosses the barrier between digital and real life. Why is that important? Because most people do not live the majority of their lives virtually. And I posit that any online startup which becomes a part of our real, non-virtual lives has more staying power than one which can simply vanish into the ether as if it never existed.

Words as Images

Since joining Pinterest, I've noticed a lot of links to inspirational or humorous quotes displayed as graphics, sort of like digital posters. I suppose this trend has been building for a while, since the popularity of image macros started to take off. But I didn't really think about the consequences for semantics and search until I read this post by Kevin Marks: Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus shun HTML, causing the infographic plague.

I can understand the appeal of a pithy phrase turned into a poster-like graphic. I am also a fan of good design and typography. But a solid color rectangle with Arial block letters made in MS Paint? Really, that doesn't convey anything that actual text can't.

And yet, the current structure of some social media (Twitter being a notable exception) makes it worthwhile to put text into images, instead of using actual text.