pinterest

Pinterest 'acqui-hires' Livestar team

Pinterest has agreed to purchase Livestar, a 2-year-old mobile application that doles out recommendations for restaurants, movies, and music, the companies announced today.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Livestar's application was shuttered immediately, which means that Pinterest's purchase is technically an "acqui-hire" and is motivated entirely by an interest in pinning down more talent.

The engineering team behind Livestar's soon-to-be-defunct service is transferring over to the social network for inspiration in the weeks ahead. But Livestar founder and CEO Fritz Lanman, a former Microsoft executive and angel investor with a stake in … Read more

Samsung Game Pad hints at Note 3

CNET Update needs bigger pockets:

Stories featured in Monday's tech roundup:

- Samsung says its new Game Pad accessory can fit a device with a 6.3-inch screen. But Samsung doesn't make a phone screen that big -- yet. Could this detail be a hint about the upcoming Note 3?

- Verizon wants to change TV fee rules by only paying for the channels subscribers are watching. And its not the only television provider trying to change the industry.

- Google Reader will soon be shut down, and Feedly is reaping all the benefits.

- Pinterest refreshed its design … Read more

Pinterest pushes out new look with bigger pins

Pinterest today announced that it will begin to introduce the general population to a new look featuring bigger pins running on a faster foundation.

The redesign, which Pinterest first started testing in late January, amounts to a collection of visual and infrastructure enhancements that should push people to pop around from one pin to the next.

Pinterest is an inspirational social network for saving recipes, fashion finds, housewares, and other digital goods to collections called "boards." These "pins," as they're called, are the essence of the site's experience and provide people with a visual … Read more

Add to Wunderlist extension provides easy, cross-platform Web clipping

I have yet to take the Evernote plunge, and I don't use Pinterest unless I'm looking over my wife's shoulder. Yet, I admit I have a need for some variety of Web-clipping app. My current strategy, if you can call it that, is leaving browser tabs open for days on end, or adding to my ever-increasing and wholly unorganized list of bookmarks.

Thankfully, I found Add to Wunderlist, a browser extension that works for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. It adds a button to the right of the your browser's URL bar for clipping a Web page … Read more

Pinterest Web Analytics tool weighs your popularity

Pinterest has launched a new Web analytics tool for site owners who want to see how well their pages are performing on the social network.

The tool, dubbed Pinterest Web Analytics, is available to companies with a verified Web site on the social network. The analytics provide detailed information on how many people have pinned something from their site, seen pins from their pages, or visited their site from the social network. The analytics also show repinned items, most clocked, and most recent pins.

Getting verified on Pinterest isn't a long process. Site owners who have a Pinterest profile … Read more

Zendesk hack snares user data from Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest

At a time when it seems no company is immune from hackers, user information from three high-profile social-networking sites has been compromised due to a hack at another company.

Customer support service Zendesk revealed today that it had been the victim of a security breach and that information from three of its clients had been downloaded. As first reported by Wired, those three clients are Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

Zendesk revealed the hack in a company blog post today that said the vulnerability was immediately identified and patched:

Our ongoing investigation indicates that the hacker had access to the support … Read more

Why one investor believes Pinterest is worth $2.5 billion

When Facebook tanked in its initial public offering, the social network eroded the perceived value of private consumer Internet companies -- save for Pinterest. Despite a lack of revenue, the scrapbooking site is now worth an unfathomable $2.5 billion.

Making an educated guess at best, investors like Rick Heitzmann, founder and managing director of FirstMark Capital, have pinned their pocketbooks to a service that merely offers the promise of future reward. FirstMark Capital was Pinterest's first institutional investor. The firm has participated in every one of the startup's funding rounds, including the monster $100 million round announced … Read more

Pinterest officially pins down $200M at $2.5B valuation

Pinterest has inspired investors to pony up about $200 million in a new round of funding that values the scrapbooking startup at $2.5 billion, the company confirmed to CNET.

The round, which was rumored to be in the works a few weeks ago, closed with firm Valiant Capital Management leading the way and was first reported by AllThingsD. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partner, and FirstMark Capital all doubled-down on the beloved site for clipping little treasures to digital pin-boards.

"Our focus is on helping millions of people discover things they love and get inspiration to go … Read more

Facebook grabs most attention among social sites

The U.S. population is enamored with Facebook. The social network ranked as the top Web destination in December 2012, with a 10.8 percent share of total time spent online during the month, according to analytics firm ComScore.

ComScore, which today published a white paper on digital trends, found that while Google sites commanded the largest audience in December, 191.4 million people in the U.S. to be exact, Facebook continues to demand the most attention.

In addition to edging out Google properties, which collectively managed to garner 10 percent of time online, Facebook also accounted for 5 … Read more