[March 19, 2012] Tech Bits & Bytes: Pinterest has staying power as social network Tweet Mar 18, 2012 (Tulsa World - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Where the heck did Pinterest come from? It launched less than two years ago, but now the booming social network boasts approximately 11.7 million users, according to . Not too shabby for a starup with no previous name recognition. By contrast, Google + may be sputtering. Though the service has 100 million registered users, thanks in part to its integration to the rest of Google's services, comScore estimates users spent an average of 3.3 minutes there in January, compared to 7.5 hours for Facebook. There aren't any similar usage stats available for Pinterest, but at least so far, the site's gotten quite a bit of, well, interest. Why have they succeeded in going up against Facebook and Twitter while so many others haven't worked as well? I've got a few thoughts. For starters, it's different. Twitter and Facebook are primarily about your innermost thoughts. They're like very, very short weblogs. Pinterest, on the other hand, is almost entirely visual. You don't necessarily have to articulate why you like something or get into the details of your personal life. You just post what you like. And posting is ridiculously easy. You don't have to mess around with saving images to your computer and uploading it or even copying the links to the images directly. Just plug in the URL of the page with the image, and Pinterest will find the image for you. Pinterest also has a stable and very large niche with women. Let's not kid ourselves -- a quick glance at the front page typically yields pages and pages of women's fashion, recipes, crafts and the like. Not that that's a bad thing, as Jerry Seinfeld would say. I think it's a smart move to provide a comfortable and safe place to express these interests, since large portions of the Internet still feel a little male-dominated. But I think Pinterest's true secret to building its userbase lies in making you sign up through Facebook or Twitter. When a new user does that, Pinterest matches her up with all her Pinterest-using friends on those two services. Additionally, Pinterest sends out a message on the user's timeline telling everyone about the new member, which gets them interested, too. It's a cycle that feeds on itself. Still, as Google + shows, it's one thing to get people signed up and quite another to keep them engaged. I have no idea if it'll stay popular in the future, but for now, the pin is in. Apps of the Week Survivors of all the weather craziness of 2011 know that checking the forecast can provide you with more important information than just what clothes to wear, and that's doubly true now that we're heading into tornado season. Typical smartphones generally come with some sort of basic weather app pre-loaded, but if you're looking for more detailed information, here's a few good choices. MyRadar Pro (iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7) Reading about a forecast is one thing, but seeing clouds and precipitation move in is quite another. MyRadar doesn't just show you weather radar animation as it moves across the map, it gives you a slew of options, including a choice of roads or satellite maps and the ability to overlay temperatures, clouds and warnings. Aviation Data Systems Inc. $2.99, iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. iMapWeather Radio (iOS) Why buy a dedicated radio when you can use your smartphone? This app gives you an automated audio forecast on demand for up to five locations, which can be either your current location or specific locations you choose on a map -- if you want to hear what the weather's like at Turkey Mountain, you can. On top of that the app gives you an animated radar and instant alerts for a huge variety of adverse weather conditions that are, thankfully, customizable. You don't have to get every single announcement of a storm watch. Weather Decision Technologies Inc., iOS, $9.99 TornadoSpy+ (iOS) This is Oklahoma, after all. The place is notorious for tornadoes, and TornadoSpy+ will give you a map of sighted tornadoes as well as tornado forecast. Have you actually seen one? Report it via the app and let people know where to steer clear. Justin Time, iOS, $2.99 Britannica drops print edition Ah, encyclopedias. I love books, and I've always found the massive row of alphabetized books stuffed with interesting facts fascinating. They're also one step closer to being obsolete, as encyclopedia icon Encyclopedia Britannica announced they're no longer publishing a print edition. That's not to say they're going out of business. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. will still update its website, which has the advantage of multimedia. But if you want the company's broad-based knowledge to weigh as much as a large dog, you're out of luck. It's looking like the encyclopedia is becoming a victim of the Internet age, since just about any bit of information in those books can be found thousands of places online (and free). Meanwhile, the New York Times pointed out that the 2010 edition costs $1,395, and only 8,000 sets of its 12,000 print run have been sold. If you're a purist, you can still pick up the World Book encyclopedia, which runs only $1,077. Though I wonder how long they can keep that up. Follow us on Twitter Follow @RobertEvatt to get the latest tech news and insight from World technology writer Robert Evatt. ___ (c)2012 Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) Visit Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) at www.tulsaworld.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]