The Pinterest Pivot: How AI Is Transforming Media Forever

The Pinterest Pivot: How AI Is Transforming Media Forever

In the world of tech startups, pivoting is not uncommon. It involves shifting the focus of a company to a new direction based on feedback and market demand. One of the most successful pivot stories is that of Pinterest, which started as an app called Tote.

Tote was an app that aimed to replace bulky catalogs with a mobile shopping experience. However, it lacked a crucial feature - a workable transaction system. While users could save and share their favorite items, they couldn't actually make purchases through the app. This limitation threatened Tote's existence.

But Ben Silbermann, the co-founder of Tote, saw an opportunity in the midst of this setback. He noticed that users were amassing collections of "favorite" items to share with their friends. This reminded him of his childhood memory of collecting insects and sharing them with others. Silbermann realized that people have a natural tendency to share their collections.

With this insight, Silbermann pitched the idea of a visually appealing platform to display all kinds of collections to a potential investor, Brian Cohen. Cohen was impressed by the pitch's crispness and the succinct description of customers' needs. He decided to invest in Silbermann's vision, even though he initially didn't care about what Silbermann was doing.

And so, in 2010, Tote transformed into Pinterest. Silbermann saw it as an iterative process, a direct outgrowth of what he had learned from the first business. With Pinterest, he provided people with a fragmented yet visually stunning way to show one another the things that interested them.

Pinterest's success didn't just come from a mere pivot; it was also influenced by the power of artificial intelligence (AI). AI has been transforming the media landscape, forever changing how media companies monetize creativity. The creative act is inherently unpredictable, which prompts media companies to look for ways to de-risk creativity.

De-risking strategies, similar to SSRIs for media companies, flatten the upside of creative work while dampening the downsides. One such strategy is summarizing other people's work. It is often easier to summarize something interesting than to create it from scratch. Content arbitrage is another approach, where a piece of content that performed well elsewhere is reformatted for a different audience.

Buzzfeed, in its early days, found success by rewriting popular Reddit posts as listicles. This content arbitrage allowed them to reliably create viral content. Creating a format is yet another de-risking strategy. Formats provide structure to creativity, making it more like filling out a Mad Libs and less like alchemy.

Shorter and shallower content is also easier to create. Complexity increases exponentially with the length and depth of creative output. By making content shorter and shallower, it becomes more manageable to produce. Additionally, making sequels or remixing something old reduces the risk of coming up with something entirely new. This is why Hollywood churns out sequel after sequel.

Another de-risking strategy is conducting interviews. Having an interesting conversation and summarizing it is often easier than generating new ideas. Lena Dunham's newsletter, Lenny, follows a similar approach, featuring conversations with various individuals.

While these de-risking strategies make it easier for humans to create content, they also make it more amenable to automation through AI. Summary-based media products, shorter pieces, and content arbitrages are all easier to automate. This shift in automation has implications for individual writers.

Writers will have more leverage to create media products on their own, with the cost structure resembling software development rather than traditional media. This means that writers can dedicate more time to research, gathering new facts, and writing longer and more interesting articles that are less susceptible to automation.

However, there is also risk for writers who are currently writing de-risked types of editorial products as part of their day job at larger companies. To mitigate this risk, it is crucial for writers to learn how to use these AI tools and leverage them to create high-quality work.

In conclusion, the story of Pinterest's pivot from Tote highlights the power of recognizing unmet needs and seizing opportunities. The integration of AI in media is transforming the industry, offering new ways to de-risk creativity and automate certain types of content. For writers, it is essential to adapt and embrace these changes to maintain relevance and create impactful work.

Actionable Advice:

1. Embrace de-risking strategies: Experiment with summarizing content, exploring content arbitrages, creating formats, and making shorter and shallower pieces to streamline your creative process.
2. Leverage AI tools: Familiarize yourself with AI-powered tools that can enhance your writing process, such as content generators, editing software, and research assistants.
3. Focus on in-depth, unique content: As automation becomes more prevalent, prioritize creating longer, more insightful articles that cannot be easily replicated by AI. Invest time in research, fact-checking, and crafting unique perspectives to stand out in the changing media landscape.