How many exactly?
It shouldn’t come as a great surprise that most people have by now either heard of, been too, or actively use, Pinterest. Not only has the company seen explosive growth since launching in September 2011, it has also, without much surprise, “inspired” the growth of many Pinterest like websites for men.
I recently stumbled upon an article written by agbeat regarding this exact matter, i.e. of the 33+ Pinterest clones currently out, which will actually survive and which will merely drown primarily due to “lack of innovations”. I don’t disagree with the comments made over at agbeat at all, I actually think they hit the nail on the head with their intuitive analysis of the social pinboard industry; yup, just created an industry. Put simply, the problem with the majority of Pinterest inspired websites is that there are no differentiating factors, i.e. all concepts do the same thing, show the same pictures, contain the same categories and target the same demographic. It seems almost basic knowledge that competing directly with Pinterest isn’t, at least at this time, a small, let alone feasible, task.
Hence, sites such as Pinspire, who, rumours say, may be winding down and cutting back their work force by at least 70 employees. To be honest, no surprise, it seems, in my mind, a daunting task to provide an identical service to Pinterest.com, the leader in the social pinboard industry, while also attempting to scale alongside an identical giant… don’t think so.
Queue… Dudepins
So why create Dudepins? Well if you gleamed any knowledge from the above, we love Pinterest and we feel the company has done, and continues to do, an absolutely amazing job thus far. That said, we, as Dudes, feel that having a social sharing service, or pinboard, strictly created, developed, and geared towards dudes, men, sirs, gentleman, males and all the other synonyms of the type, is absolutely essential. Dudepins is all about fast cars, tailored suits and scotches that are older than dirt. Dudepins is a website to discover and share the coolest stuff for dudes. Dudes like sharing stuff and we know that, so we are trying our darn hardest to build a suitable community for men.
That said, we recognize that the adventure we are endeavouring on is, just that, an adventure. To put it in common terms, we feel like Frodo ready to take on the unknown and begin a mission that, without any exaggeration, has “chosen” us; that’s right, call it beef or bologny, doesn’t make a difference to us.
However, the important tid bit of information that we, the dudes, hope you have taken from the above is that we are looking to build this community around you, for you and most importantly, with you. We are not made of gold, silver or even bronze, we are simply folk who have some wicked branding ideas, apparently too much time to spare and a social life that is currently being trimmed down in honor of all dudes and this initiative; yup, you should feel special. Anyhow, we want to grow with our community, so please help us, teach us, tell us, complain to us and most basically, talk to us and talk about us…. please. We have some pretty sweet campaigns in the pipeline, (crowdfunding, kickstarter (we hope), and others) so chime in, get involved and help us make Dudepins a reality.
If we have pulled anything meaningful out of the current circulating criticism of Pinterest clones, it’s that they are not “different” in the sense of actually being different, i.e. filling a gap, need or space that Pinterest is not currently filling, or building around a distinct theoretical difference. We know we are different, we know we will bring awesome, cool, trending, hip and sweet things, and we know, well hope, that dudes respond well to our presence. Regarding our website, we know it’s not beautiful, but the answer to that is that it’s in the works and that’s why we need your support. As was mentioned above, we are a few ambitious folk looking to embark on an awesome adventure, we can’t wait.
Man up. Sign up. Pin up.
The other guys
In case you’re interested, we have pasted below a list of the Pinterest “like” clones currently out there, have a browse, as some are actually quite interesting. We credit the folks over at agbeat.com for putting together the below. (give credit where credits due)
- Alibaba Social shopping, primarily Chinese
- Chill, a Pinterest type website designed for video
- Discover, a Pinterest for designers, very cool
- Everplaces, a Pinterest for places, world, etc
- Fyndesters, a Pinterest for art, design and things of that type
- Wanelo, a Pinterest for shopping.
- GetVega, a Pinterest for compulsive listers.
- Gtrot, a Pinterest for travel and deals.
- Hunuku, a Pinterest for families.
- I Wanna Nom, a Pinterest for recipes.
- Kulisha, a Pinterest for social commentary.
- LittleMonsters, a Pinterest for Lady Gaga fans.
- Loverly, a Pinterest for weddings.
- Stylepin, a Pinterest for fashion.
- MarkPic, another Chinese social sharing clone.
- Minglewing, a Pinterest for discussion.
- PinClub.com, a Pinterest for “sexy stuff” (aka porn).
- Pingram, a Pinterest for Instagram…. maybe should call this “pinbook” now.
- Pinspire, Pinterest replics
- Reclip.it, a Pinterest for deals.
- Singterest, a Pinterest for Singapore.
- Snatchly.com, a Pinterest for porn.
- SnipIt, a Pinterest for news.
- SparkRebel, a Pinterest for fashion
- Dudepins.com, a Site for men
