Today, Pinterest alleviates this annoyance with the new send button. You can now send pins directly to your friends and family on both mobile and the web, as long as you both follow each other on the network.

“Just tap Send from either web or mobile to send a pin. You can send pins to fellow pinners (if you both follow each other), Facebook friends, or email contacts. We’ll show you the most recent people you’ve sent pins to for easy access,” says Pinterest. “You can even include a message to give it a more personal touch!”

When you send a pin to another user, they’ll be notified. If they make an action on that pin, including commenting, liking, or repinning, you’ll see that in your notifications as well. It’s a nice little fix to a previously irksome issue.

According to Pinterest, users should start to see the new send option rollout over the next few weeks.

Speaking of notifications, Pinterest finally added them to the mobile experience (both the iOS and Android apps). That update, which launched earlier this week, also brought mentions and improved search to both apps.

Today, Pinterest is taking steps to make the mobile experience better with updates to their iOS and Android apps. Pinterest for iOS v 2.4 and Pinterest for Android v 1.5 are now available.

First up, Pinterest is unveiling new search suggestions inside the app.

“We’ll now suggest search terms as you type on mobile. You can also see recent searches you made from other places, so if you searched for a soup recipe from your computer, you can do the same search when you’re at the grocery store with just your phone to help you. It’s easy to delete these searches from your settings if you want to,” says Pinterest.

As you can see, searching for something like “apple” now yields suggestions for apple-related content. This also works with user search. It’s a small, but useful improvement.

The other additions to come along with today’s update are a long time coming, quite frankly. With the new versions, you can now @ mention other users. Both iOS and Android users can now get notifications as well.

“Now you can see who commented on your pin or mentioned you whenever you have your phone handy. And if you can’t get enough, we’re also introducing push notifications so you can find out what’s happening without even opening the Pinterest app,” says Pinterest.

The iOS update also brings a couple of new features, including the ability to “pin from more places more easily from the web.” This amounts to a prominent “+” button on the homescreen that lets you enter in the url of the item you wish to pin. Not quite as easy as with the desktop version of Pinterest, with that handy pin button, but it does help. iOS users can also now invite friends to group boards from the app.

“As we’ve rolled out our new look, we’ve heard from our community about things they love, things they miss, and things that could make Pinterest even better,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “Thanks to the feedback, we’ve made some changes. The most significant changes are a new notifications system that keeps you up on all of the activity around your account, as well a typeahead to offer suggestions while you search.”

After you pin something, you can check out related boards or go straight to your pin by clicking “See it Now”.

For those who missed the “via” feature, Pinterest has added a way to see who things were pinned from when you click on a pin.

You can also now mention friends in pin descriptions and comments using an “@” before their name.

The “Find Friends” feature lets you see which of your Facebook and Twitter friends are on Pinterest.

Pinterest has added more notifications, with “Recent Activity” located in the upper right hand corner, and notifications for when someone follows you or your boards; repins, likes or comments on pins, and mentions. Old notifications will also be there for future reference.

There’s also an improved search functionality, with search suggestions as you type.

Soon, Pinterest says it will start letting you know when new pins have been added to your home feed. They’re also thinking about adding the ability to rearrange your pins, search for your pins, and to create a board within a board. These would likely be welcome features.

Also in the cards is the ability to know when you’ve already pinned something to prevent duplicates.

They’re still rolling out the new design.

Nook announced today that Pinterest is now available on Nook HD, Nook HD+, Nook Tablet and Nook Color devices. The app is available from the Nook store, but it will also come preloaded with any new Nook device sold.

“Pinterest has long been one of our most requested apps and we are thrilled to bring it to Nook, along with the Twitter and Facebook for NOOK apps,” said Claudia Romanini, Vice President of Nook Apps, Nook Media LLC. “Our goal is to bring Nook users the very best in social media and these apps will bring to life the rich sharing experiences that Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter offer.”

Alongside Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter will also come preloaded on all new Nook devices. The Facebook app received an update that overhauls the experience to mimic what users expect out of a Facebook app on other mobile devices. With the new app, users can “see what their friends are up to, share updates, photos and videos, chat and have group conversations, play games and much more.”

The addition of Pinterest is just the latest move from Nook to make its platform more desirable to consumers. It recently launched Nook Press, a new version of Barnes & Noble’s popular PubIt! platform that allows independent authors to self-publish their titles on Nook. If it takes off, we could see Nook devices starting to sell well again as people clamor for exclusive content from up-and-coming authors.

You don’t have to install the “Pin It” bookmarklet on your browser, though if you’re the type to pin stuff you find from image search results to Pinterest, I’d say there’s a good chance you already have it installed anyway.

Bing links to and gives proper attribution to the original content, it says, so image owners should be happy that Pinterest users will be sent to their images rather than just to Bing.

“Last fall, we hosted a group of lifestyle and design bloggers at the Bing headquarters to better understand their search and social media habits,” writes Bing program manager Chen Fang. “What we discovered is a community that does more than its fair share of image searches, with much of it tied to Pinterest. They shared some of the hassles they face, and that finding efficient ways to hunt down original, high-resolution images and filtering image results were some of their pain points.”

That’s why Bing has launched the “Pin to Pinterest” feature, Fang says.

Those who follow the search industry know that Bing prides itself on its social features that are lacking from Google, so this is really just the latest extension of that.

With today’s update, you can now edit your profile inside the app – something that was a long time coming.

Individual pin pages have also received a tuneup to help promote discovery. Scroll down to the bottom of a pin page to see the new “people who pinned this also pinned” section.

This “people who pinned this also pinned” feature is the same one that Pinterest recently rolled out on desktop. It was part of a larger rollout of their brand new UI redesign that they said was all about discovery. Individual pin pages on desktop now feature pins from the same board and pins from the same source alongside “people who pinned this also pinned.”

The desktop redesign also brought bigger pins, better browsing, and more.

You can get a more detailed (close-up) look at your pins with the new iOS app as well, but only on iPad.

You can grab the new Pinterest app from iTunes today.

“We think the Livestar team is a natural fit for Pinterest because of their commitment to inspiring people to do things in their everyday lives through social and expert recommendations,” a spokesperson for Pinterest says in an email.

“The Livestar engineering team will be joining Pinterest in the coming weeks,” she says. “CEO and founder Fritz Lanman will not be joining the team, but he will continue to advise Pinterest. An active angel investor in startups including Pinterest, Fritz will continue to invest and advise startups and will be undertaking a new, yet to be announced project.”

“Our goal at Livestar is to help people find great recommendations from friends, critics and strangers with similar taste,” says the Livestar team in its own announcement. “Over the last two years, the Livestar community has shared millions of ratings and reviews. Today we wanted to let you know that we’ll be making our next move: the Livestar engineering team will be joining Pinterest.”

The Livestar app will be shutting down immediately.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

During a recent earnings call, the company expressed such an initiative, leading us to believe that we’ll be seeing more of these kinds of acquisitions in the near future.

“We plan to leverage our premium video expertise to launch Subscription and On-Demand e-learning content by mid-year,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “We’ve already begun beta testing eHow Now, a product that offers real-time expert advice, where we leverage our studio’s expert talent to provide real-time answers. In our beta, we have experienced strong conversion rates and a 90% customer approval rating. We’re also developing a LIVESTRONG subscription service. We’ve hired senior executives from the makers of P90X to help develop this product offering, which we plan to launch in Q2.”

With an increased interest in sites like Etsy and Pinterest, one can only imagine that consumers are hungry for the kinds of content Creativebug has to offer.

“We believe there is a disruption and reinvention going on, as people become more interested in the craft movement,” the spokesperson says. “People will continue to turn to the visual inspiration provided by Etsy and Pinterest, which will feed their interest in expressing themselves and learning to create things.”

Of course, as far as Creativebug is concerned, they have to care enough to pay to learn.

Creativebug already has hundreds of videos. The top three categories, according to Demand Media, are sewing ,yarn and jewelry. The average video length is about 30 minutes.

But with all the free content already out there, is this stuff really worth paying for? They charge $16.99 a month for access to unlimited workshops, and $9.99 and up to buy single workshops. When asked what users can get for their money that they can’t get from other sites, the company says, “They get to learn from world class experts in the craft field, which is not available on any other site.”

Demand Media is not disclosing the details of the acquisition. They’re also not disclosing how many paying members Creativebug already has.

The new look is all about discovery, as Pinterest wants users to spend more time browsing and pinning. To this end, Pinterest’s new look strongly affects individual pin pages. These “close-up views” now feature other information for people to use as a springboard for other, similar content.

Each individual pin page now features pins from the same board, pins from the same source, and a widget for “people who pinned this also pinned,” which Pinterest notes is exactly what it sounds like. Each of these new content boxes allow users to discover new content from similar users.

Pinterest says that they hope to bring these additions to their iOS and Android apps soon.

Pinterest has also made some updates to how you navigate around the site:

“We wanted to make things simpler and cleaner, without requiring you to learn anything new. What you’ll find are some subtle but useful changes, like bigger pins, so you see more of what you love. We also responded to some feedback from pinners who told us they hated losing their place while browsing. Now, when you scroll through pins and click on something that interests you, the back button lands you right back where you were no matter how far you’ve gone.”

Improving discovery is important for users, but it’s also important for the site, who is looking to show potential marketers that Pinterest is worth their time. Earlier this month, Pinterest debuted an analytics tool for site owners. Currently free, Pinterest Web Analytics shows site owners how many people have pinned from their site, the reach of those pins across Pinterest, and the traffic referred to their sites from Pinterest.

With the (currently) free product, site owners can track how pins that come from their site perform on Pinterest. Site owners can see how many people have pinned from their site, the reach of those pins across Pinterest, and the traffic referred to their sites from Pinterest.

The web analytics also show site owners info on the most repinned, most clicked, and most recent pins so that they can accurately judge what kind of content is most popular in the present. “For example, if you have a travel blog, you’ll be able to see whether people are pinning your ski vacation posts or beach vacation posts more,” says Pinterest.

The new Pinterest Web Analytics is only available for verified websites. If you’re looking to verify your site’s Pinterest presence, check your settings page. Once you verify your site, click on “Analytics” in the menu on the top right-hand side (with Pinterest’s new look). And that’s it. The service is currently free to any and all verified profiles.

“Today’s announcement builds on the set of tools we offer for website owners including business accounts, Pin It buttons and board widgets. We think that these tools will help website owners understand what’s working for them and what’s not so that they can create even better pins in the future. We even updated our business site with new tips and case studies to make things easier. Over the coming months, we hope to add new tools and more detailed insights, so let us know what else you would like to see,” says Pinterest.

It’s no secret that Pinterest is looking for ways to monetize, and slowly implementing more tools for businesses on the site is a first step. Laying down the groundwork for personalized analytics could help Pinterest show businesses the value of the service, if and when the site choose to get into the advertising game. Plus, the analytics service by itself could possibly generate revenue for Pinterest, considering the company keeps expanding its features so that it could offer additional services for a premium fee.