Pinterest Ancestors wists The entrepreneurial story of eating crab martyrs

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Editor's note: The author of this article is David Galbraith, one of the founders of RSS and Yelp, who created Wists in 2005 and pioneered the image-sharing model now used by Pinterest. He used to be a building designer and turned into an entrepreneur.

Speaking of Wists, perhaps few people understand, but you must know Pinterest, and wists is Pinterest well-deserved ancestors, but also has become martyrs.

I created this image-sharing site in 2005, and a year later it won the favor of many female users who were happy to share those beautiful crafts pictures on wists.

Because of RSS and Yelp, I've heard too much praise, and I feel guilty about it, but I don't hide my pride in the invention of a new pattern-sharing model of visual bookmarks, like tagging a bookmark. In the final analysis, this is not actually called "invention", it is so simple can not be simple things. But it is in the right direction, and now the development of the Pinterest is based on this way to grow up.

When I invested 1 billion dollars for wists, this history is still memorable, and the site is still operating, but has been dying.

Initially, we called the Wists service a "visual bookmark" and then switched to "social shopping", as users wists to share what they wanted to buy. The site was originally used to make a profit by attaching a picture to a purchase link, which is the same as Pinterest's approach. When browsing other websites, users can click on their favorite pictures and add a description and share them with their friends.

The biggest difference between wists and Pinterest is that it exists as a promotional platform for a product blog, and the commercial nature is even more pronounced.

I worked with the Twitter team for a while, and I visited them one months ago. Biz Stone asked me why I said wists was rubbish, and he thought I was too humble. Only I know wists is a fast-growing defective. As a designer, I just want you to see a work that's done and perfect. What I want to tell entrepreneurs is to do what they are capable of doing and doing it well.

Now it seems that the timing of the launch of wists is not mature enough. Social networking sites were not popular at the time, and Wists had to rely on their own strength to develop. Website promotion is usually done through newspapers, and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have devoted a lot of coverage. I just want to do something simple and successful compared to making money. But as a consumer application, to better maintain the user base, there is no money is not.

Because of the Pinterest, "nail" and "nail plate" metaphor is also popular, and wists appeared without such an image of the argument, however, the wists still works well. In my opinion, Pinterest's success is not in how different it is, but because it is a new thing. Right, the user is all the same. And the market has matured compared to the wists,pinterest launch. What I want to say here is that success is often not the first person to eat crabs, and those who have enough experience are more likely to succeed.

Wists was only a prototype when it was launched, and Pinterest was a successful product. Pinterest's success also lies in its adaptability to internet trends and integration into many social elements.

Pinterest's success has inspired more innovation for other entrepreneurs, who will create more image-sharing platforms similar to or beyond Pinterest. Pinterest the emergence of E-commerce has opened up a new way: commodity display and logistics separation, the future of the shop will become a photo gallery, to provide consumers with a better shopping experience, I also look forward to in the Pinterest will have more picture-sharing platform to success.

Via Gigaom