Pinterest: Estrogen’s Domain Name
That’s how I jokingly described this thing to my wife. She had been on Pinterest for several weeks. She was as crazy for it as I was for Reddit. She kept showing me all these neat craft ideas – shoe boxes covered in wrapping paper hung on walls, stenciled designs for the laundry room. She found recipes, which made me quite happy. My solid impression, based on all my lady friends on Facebook who were jumping on, was that Pinterest was all sugar and spice and everything nice. But, it looked like fun…
I was interested in seeing if there was a “Pinterest for men“. So, I hopped online and, surprise, other guys (probably beleaguered husbands) were asking the same thing. The response I found? The best “Pinterest for men” is… Pinterest. Just dig deeper.
Ok. I was intrigued. I got my wife to send me an invite, downloaded the free iPhone app, and jumped in.
First impression, which was confirmed by every woman I talked to: the iPhone app is woeful. My wife uses Safari on iPhone to access her account. That needs to be fixed, for sure.
As with most new things you jump into (Facebook, Twitter, anything), it takes a bit of time to get yourself squared away so you get things that interest you. But, I found quickly that there were “manly” categories like:
– Cars and Motorcycles
– Geek
– Men’s Apparel
– Sports
– and… Technology
Bingo. I’m in.
There is still the distinct smell of “female” in some of these categories. Men’s apparel, for example, contains lots of pictures of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Taye Diggs. But, they’re wearing really nice stuff.
Let’s jump to Technology. That’s why we came here.
A couple of things that jumped off the page right away were a backup battery for iPhone…
and a plan for 3D printing house keys…
One a gadget, the other an innovation. Sure, 3D printing tech is still in the early stages, but that is totally a great everyday application for the technology. I’ll “re-pin” those items, in the parlance of Pinterest (think of it as “sharing” on Facebook I suppose.)
This one is cool. GM is developing interactive car windows.
Their applications for side windows is cool. But, you just know that system will be jailbroken within days and you’ll see Escalades with porn rolling on the windows.
In a related story, a concept phone called the BRICK, which is transparent. I drool over this.
What else can we find? How about a brilliant bit of geekiness in video editing?
Remember, I found all these things pinned on Pinterest. So, grab yourself a free membership, tune up with stuff you like, and jump in. But, don’t tell your wife.
