God loves a tryer, so they say, and they don’t come much bigger than Google. It’s dominated the world of search so completely, it’s hard for any single company to even think about giving it a run for its money. But Pinterest is giving it a damn good try.
It’s evolved from its early incarnation of a pin-board site into a sophisticated, smart platform that has more than earned its e-commerce stripes, turning engaging and eye-catching content into shoppable products for discerning customers and bringing marketers flocking to its door.
Understandably, Google isn’t taking the competition lying down and has launched Keen, a web and Android app that offers users a “place to grow and share your interests with loved ones”, according to a blog post from its creator, CJ Adams.
“You say what you want to spend more time on, and then curate content from the web and people you trust to help make that happen,” Adams wrote. “You make a ‘keen’ which can be about any topic, whether it’s baking delicious bread at home (Ed’s note: sourdough, anyone?), getting into birding or researching typography. Keen lets you curate the content you love, share your collection with others and find new content based on what you have saved.”
If you’re thinking it sounds a LOT like Pinterest, we’d say you’d be right, but there is a little more clout to Keen. It draws on the might of Google Search and the latest in machine learning to identify content related to users’ interests – something that could potentially be very useful for marketers.
Keen isn’t the first crack Google has taken at Pinterest, in fact it’s been rolling out tools and features mimicking the platform for almost two years. Whether it’s genuinely hit on something this time around only time will tell, but we’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on this new kid on the social media block.
Are you a devoted Pinterest lover looking to hook up with more social media platforms? Drop us a line at 24 fingers and let us play Cupid.
