Pinterest is in the news a lot these days and we keep hearing these facts:

• New tech/social startup from Silicon Valley.
• Has more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.
• Over 70% of users are women. 97% of fans on Facebook are also women.
• Average time spent on site is more than Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

What do these really mean? Well of course this did not happen over night. In their first nine months after launch they had just over 10,000 users and only a few of them were actually active on daily basis.

The CEO, Ben Silbermann used to work at Google, but not as an engineer. He was in online sales and operations. Pinterest was not built by engineers alone, the company has three important divisions: Engineering, Design and Social. A successful tech startup really needs all the three divisions. Knowing how to code is no longer enough if you are not working with people who know design and social. I believe Pinterest is still in its early stages and we are all watching its progress very closely. Just by checking Mashable and Twitter everyday you get to read a couple of blog posts/articles about this new hot social media community.

Also just like any other social network, Pinterest has to deal with some copy right issues as content owners are concerned about posting their work or having other people post their work. I am sure the guys at Pinterest will figure this out later, now the goal is to get more users. When YouTube came out there was also the copyright concern but they managed to become the world’s second search engine.

I just love the fact that how one new company of 20 people can suddenly come out and drive more traffic than some big names like YouTube or LinkedIn with army of people, years of experience and a ton of cash.