I was an early adapter of Pinterest, but even though I’m one of those geeks who reads terms of service, I was careless in how I used what I fondly called my “happy place.” This post made me take a long look at how I had been using Pinterest. I realized that I was no longer comfortable with the site, and that I was not likely to change my practices there. The only solution for me was to extricate myself from the site. I’m sad about doing so. I’ve had a lot of entertainment looking at pretty pins, but I strive to behave according to my ethics, and the way I used Pinterest was not aligned with my values. I know there are arguments to be made about the publicity pinning can generate for a site, but I never bought into those arguments with Napster, and I don’t now. I’m a creator. I want to respect others who create, and this is one way I can do so.
Today I recorded a screencast to demonstrate how I’m moving away from Pinterest. One of my favorite uses of it was to compile interesting recipes and notes. I’m sure there are easier and maybe even more elegant solutions, but this is working well for me. I have my on-line recipes organized in Evernote, and I can access them via my iPhone and iPad.
To their credit, Pinterest has revised its terms. Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve felt the need to limit my information intake. I don’t feel overwhelmed. Rather, I feel that I’ve been giving my ideas short shrift; something new pops into my head about every seven minutes, and I want to slow that down and work with all the interesting thoughts and projects taking root there already.
I hope that my screencast is useful; I would love to hear how you organize your on-line recipes.
Love this idea! Pintrest’s Terms bothered me (and I know I don’t read them as closely as I should) since I don’t want to assert copyright, but I wanted to store different ideas that I found. Happily converting them to Evernote (and organizing my mess as I go). Thanks for the inspiration . . . and it was lovely to hear your voice, too!
thanks for the tip on Evernote! i am glad to be free of Pinterest for a zillion reasons, including copyright issues, but it’s nice to have a similar and private way to do the same thing.
Thank you so much for your post. The Pinterest terms were troubling me as well. I’m new to Evernote and look forward to trying it, especially after your clear intro.