Google charges for advertising, but in order for...

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Google charges for advertising, but in order for it to work, we users have to signal our intent: “Red Nike running sneakers.” But, how did I decide to want these red running shoes in the first place? While Google makes money at the bottom of this decision funnel, the top of the funnel is where “discovery” happens. It’s much wider at the top of the funnel, and harder to pin down where the thoughts originate (pun intended).

The Rise Of Pinterest And The Shift From Search To Discovery | TechCrunch

Semil Shah wrote a great post over on Techcrunch about Pinterest, but I don’t agree with all of it.

This quote captures the simple difference between search and discovery online. Semil’s right, discovery comes first, and then search second. However, Search will always be more handsomely rewarded than discovery, because it is the final step before the conversion.

In Semil’s example, Pinterest might do the work of “inspiring” you to buy the red Nike shoes, but when Zappos looks at their analytics package, they’ll see the upstream click from a Google search or some comparison shopping engine. Pinterest will not register on the map. Google is fully aware of this “credit” they get, and they reenforced it strongly when they bought Urchin, renamed it Google Analytics, and gave it away for free.

Pinterest could try to solve this problem by helping the user search for the best place to purchase the object of their inspiration, but, note that would be search, not discovery, and it would be building the equivalent of an entire second business.

(via thegongshow)

Actually, Pinterest has built in both elements - when you pin an image from say, j.crew, the permalink and clicking the picture both takes you to the product page on jcrew.com and if you include the price in the description a small badge displaying it is on the pin as well. example: http://pinterest.com/pin/422281184656321/ so they’ve actually mastered the funnel from end to end. the more interesting thing is if pinterest users were previously searching on google for these products and now seach pinterest or if this is opening up a new avenue of unintended search. My guess is that people go on pinterest for eye candy/inspiration and then end up clicking through and purchasing items they wouldn’t have thought to seek out otherwise.

(via thegongshow)

11/7/11