This week I spoke with Lucas Martinez. Lucas first used Pinyadda in it’s early stages in the summer of 2009, and has since watched the platform and user base develop. He now uses the site just about every day. I really enjoyed chatting with Lucas about how Pinyadda fits into his life because he explains it as having truly transformed how he finds and receives information. That’s mission accomplished for us here at Pinyadda.
Lucas works on the marketing team for Deckers, the designer and manufacturer of the high-performance footwear you know well: UGG, Teva and Simple. On a day-to-day basis he does a lot of email and search campaign generation, copywriting, and competitive and trend research to advise the Deckers’ product team on where to move next. This means he has to stay up on what’s happening in the industry.
A tool: everything in one place
Before Pinyadda, Lucas visited and maneuvered through 10-15 sites a day to stay up with innovation and marketing news. He’d also amass a stockpile of newsletters in his inbox, which he describes as “overwhelming.” (He said they probably account for 75 percent of the emails he receives.) He likes that now he “just has to go to one site,” Pinyadda, instead of wasting time navigating through various sites and newsletters for the information he wants. In this sense he views Pinyadda as a “useful tool.” In fact, he simply keeps Pinyadda open all day to stay on top of trend research and to monitor competitor initiatives as they break.
More than a tool: what keeps him coming back for more
While Pinyadda solves a big convenience problem for Lucas, it’s not what keeps him coming back for more. The conversations and discussions he has is by far his favorite part of the Pinyadda experience. He really enjoys talking about what he’s reading, noting: “I really like to see what other people think. It’s exciting when someone you know comments … It keeps me checking in on my phone to see if someone has commented back.” Each of the users I’ve interviewed has noted the same about the social aspect of Pinyadda, and we’re becoming more confident that this is where our product/market fit lies.
Our users aren’t the only ones who note that discussing the news is the most engaging aspect of reading it online. Pew Research, recently released a report on changes in news consumption behavior, The New News Landscape: Rise of the Internet, which describe Lucas and many of of our other users as “the participatory news consumer.” The report confirms that:
“People’s relationship to news is becoming portable, personalized and participatory … To a great extent, people’s experience of news, especially on the internet, is becoming a shared social experience as people swap links in emails, post news stories on their social networking site feeds, highlight news stories in their Tweets and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads.”
We’re excited to be leading the way with a product that fosters and enables this new news consumption paradigm, and more excited to hear Lucas and our other users unwaveringly note this as their favorite aspect of Pinyadda.
Changing his behavior beyond Pinyadda
On the note of social, while spurred by his wanting to reach ‘Pin-domination’ on Pinyadda (a simple set of tasks that helps users maximize the value they’ll get out of the platform), Pinyadda has actually made Lucas start experimenting with Twitter. He explained that while he doesn’t like the idea of sharing where he’s going and what he’s doing with people in status updates, he does want to share useful, fun and interesting links with them. (Lucas, you can go ahead and let Jack Dorsey know Pinyadda made you start to use Twitter. ☺)
Groups: faster activation, more inviting
When I asked Lucas what he think we could be doing better or differently with Pinyadda, he brought up something that is actually on our product roadmap: groups. He feels that on-boarding people to the platform as a group, where each person knows several others, they would more quickly realize the power and enjoyment factor of Pinyadda. He also noted it would help people immediately benefit from the sharing and discussions, and ultimately help them become activated and engaged on Pinyadda more quickly.
Lucas would like to see this feature so he can invite his Deckers marketing colleagues to join Pinyadda. They currently use a private Facebook group to internally share and discuss interesting articles, and which has become a “wall of news” for them. Instead, he’d like to see his team on Pinyadda, where they can be served relevant information on right from the get-go and more easily discuss it. This was great to hear, and re-emphasized the value our platform could offer in the workplace.
Lucas, we’ll be sure to be back in touch as we start designing the group aspect of Pinyadda. Thanks for providing us a glimpse into how Pinyadda fits into your life. We couldn’t be more thrilled that it’s changed for the better how you find, receive and share information!
If you’d like to follow Lucas on Pinyadda, I’d suggest following his recommended articles on: