Pinterest Adds Location-Based Place Pins

Pinterest Local Pins.previewPinterest has launched Place Pins, its first step into the travel space.

“About a year ago, we noticed pinners creating more and more boards around the vacations they’re planning, special places near where they live and sites they want to see someday,” said Pinterest product designer Justin Edmund.
“In fact, every day people pin about 1.5m places, and now there are more than 750m pins of these destinations on Pinterest. We asked ourselves, how can we help people turn their travel inspiration into reality?”

This functionality enables users to post images on Pinterest which include the place they were taken, using Foursquare’s location API and map technology from Mapbox. These posts can be pulled into maps – boards, in Pinterests terminology – which can be collaborated on by groups of friends.

The offering seems ideally suited to mobile, and Pinterest has confirmed that app users will be able to get directions to pinned locations. Its all part of an effort to make the sites pins “more actionable in real life,” according to Edmund – something which is, of course, vital to the companys attempt to monetise its platform.