Oh, How Pinteresting!

Last year, we began publishing our first transparency report for the last six months of 2013. Today we’re releasing our first full year transparency report for 2014 as an update from our earlier mid-year report. You can see the full report here. We’ll continue to publish similar reports every six months.

—Adam Barton, Product Manager, currently Pinning to Benedict Cumberbark

We get a lot of questions about what men are up to on Pinterest, so we did some digging and thought we’d share what we found.

What’s trending with guys? Here are the top 3 Pins from men in the U.S. over the past month:

1) A sharp idea for taking your look to the next level in men’s fashion:

2) A home improvement how-to for building an easy platform bed:

3) A survival backpack to take on your next camping trip in the great outdoors:

And here are a few more runners-up that made man waves this past month..

4) The best hiking trails around the world:

5) How to tie a knot on a boating, camping or fishing trip:

6) Sperry boots you could wear on a hike or a night out:

7) How to make a wooden couch sleeve for drinks and snacks:

8) An easy to read watch that’s still stylish:

9) A pocket-sized Altoid survival kit:

10) A wall-mounted shelf that’s also a work of art:

11) How to rig up any type of tarp shelter:

12) Industrial shelves you can make yourself:

13) Ideas for dapper pattern mixing:

14) How to build a backyard fire pit:

15) Lace-up Vans to try out for spring:

—Larkin Brown, Researcher, currently Pinning to Style • men

Over the years, we’ve added extra info to Pins to make them even more useful. Recipe Pins list ingredients and cook time, product Pins show you price and availability, and article Pins give you a headline and story description.

Now if you’re on your iPhone or iPad, you’ll see another kind of Pin: app Pins. Let’s say you’re Pinning workout inspiration to your Marathon Training board. If you see a fitness app that helps you reach your goals, you can download it right from Pinterest.

When you come across an app Pin, tap Install to download the app right to your iPhone or iPad without ever leaving Pinterest (you’ll only see app Pins when you’re using the Pinterest app on your iPhone or iPad).

Check out the App Store’s new profile for a collection of the latest and greatest app Pins. You can also save your favorite apps right from the App Store itself.

Or check out top picks from our very own Pinployees on our Staff Picks board.

-Julie Black, Product Manager, currently Pinning to Onesie-humor

Back at beginning of this new year, we encouraged everyone to chuck their usual quit-this, lose-that resolutions and try something different instead. And it seems a bunch of you are doing exactly that.

We took a look at top Pins for January in some of the fastest growing topics on Pinterest (like gardening, woodworking and DIY), and people have come up with some amazingly creative ideas for the year ahead. Here are 15 of our favorites. If you spot an idea that looks interesting, it isn’t too late to add it to your own 2015 board!

1. Can’t move to the mountains? Bring the mountains to your bedroom.

2. Keep the picnic going even after the sun goes down.

3. Push back the seats and enjoy the show.

4. Do one really nice thing each week this year.

5. Grow your own edible alien landscape.

6. Go at it hammer and tongs.

7. Healthy, tasty and easy to make…all in one pan.

8. Grow the kids a snackable secret hideaway.

9. Skip rainbow rocks in Montana.

10. Give your old DVDs a new lease on life.

11. Turn a bland corner into a useful zig-zag shelf.

12. Visit new worlds without leaving the planet. (Romania! Who knew?)

13. What are you doing this weekend? Oh, filling eggshells with paint and hurling them at some canvas. How about you?

14. Blow people’s minds with an all-new scarf move.

15. Transform found stumps into heirlooms.

Well hello there, 2015. It looks like it’s going to be an interesting year!

—Evany Thomas, Writer, still Pinning to To Try in 2015.

Last year, we started experimenting with Promoted Pins on Pinterest. Since then, a growing group of businesses in the U.S. have been paying to give their Pins more visibility in search results and category feeds. Now, we’re testing ads in different places, including the home feed, for U.S. Pinners.

Your home feed is the first thing you see when you come to Pinterest, so we want to make sure you’re always welcomed with Pins that are beautiful, relevant and tasteful—and that includes Promoted Pins. Of course, if you don’t like a Promoted Pin, you can always hide it from your feed and tell us why you didn’t like it. We’ll use your feedback to improve what you see in the future.

Promoted Pins are just like regular Pins—the only difference is that a business paid to have more people see it. These Pins will always be labeled “Promoted” so they’re easy to spot. We’ve seen Pinners save Promoted Pins to their boards of wish lists, inspirations and interests—just like other Pins they discover. Recently, I was looking to redo my bedroom, and I found a rug in the Home Décor category on Pinterest that’s just my style. It happened to be a Promoted Pin from Target. That’s exactly what we’re hoping Promoted Pins can be: one more way to discover and save creative ideas, connecting you to businesses that’ll help you make your plans a reality.

We want to make sure Pinterest is a service that’s here to stay for all of us, and advertising helps us ensure that happens. As always, we’re listening to any feedback you have about how Pinterest is doing, so let us know what you think.

—Annie Ta, Product Manager, currently Pinning to Dream Home.

We want to give you a quick look at some of the improvements we’ve been making behind the scenes to the results you see in Guided Search.

If you do a lot of searching on Pinterest, you may already have noticed the results you’re seeing are better than ever. For example, say you’re looking for a new watch. Before when you searched Pinterest for “watches,” your results would include mostly women’s timepieces. But now, men will see Pins and guides inspired by what other guys have Pinned, and everybody’s results should feel a lot closer to what they’re looking for. Of course if you ever want results for another gender, like if you’re shopping for a gift for someone else, you can always use the guides to fine-tune your search.

These customized search results appear for thousands of different search terms. The next time you’re on Pinterest, try searching for hair, shoes or health and see for yourself how spot on your results are. (Not getting the results you’re looking for? Make sure you’ve selected your preferred gender in your settings.)

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got lots more improvements coming your way. Check back soon for more announcements!

—Pei Yin, Engineer, currently Pinning to Ships.

Happy (almost) new year, everyone! We hope your holidays have been merry and bright, and that you’re fully recovered from all the holiday cheering.

Here at Pinterest, we’ve decided to try something a little different this New Years. Instead of making the same old list of resolutions, we’re pinning creative ideas we’ve always wanted to try instead: Like our PR specialist Mithya. She’s going to try different coffee spots around San Francisco. And one of our founders, Evan, is planning to build a photo wall at home.

We’d love for you to join us! All you have to do is:

Step 1: Pin the year you want!

Make your own “To Try in 2015” board and fill it with ideas you’ve always wanted to try—from little things (grow your own salad bar) to big life-changers (Antarctica, anyone?). And since the ideas you Pin are all visual, it’s easy to picture yourself doing them.

If you need some inspiration, take a look at what resolutionaries like Chef Emeril and globe-trotter Trey are trying this year over in our Ideas for 2015 Pin Picks .

Step 2: Share your board with friends

Studies show that when you tell friends about your plans, you’re more likely to do them. So try sharing your board on Facebook or Twitter, along with the hashtag #PinYourYear. You can even tag friends who might be able to help, or even challenge them to try something a little different this year, too.

Step 3: Try the things you’ve Pinned throughout the year

When you’re ready to give a Pin a try, the info you need is always right at hand—just click to see the site the Pin came from. And even if things don’t go exactly as planned the first time you try it, don’t worry about it. Because this year, the fun’s in the trying.

Ready? Try something different this year!

—Evany Thomas, Writer, currently Pinning to To Try in 2015.

Lots of Pinners have told us they’d like a way to move groups of Pins to new or different boards. So starting today, we’re making it happen!

Say you have a recipe board that’s gotten a little unwieldy, and you want to give your dessert Pins a board of their own. Now you can move them all at once:

1. Go to any of your boards on the web

2. Click Move Pins

3. Select up to 50 Pins to move

4. Pick a new board for them

You can also copy Pins so they live on two different boards, or delete Pins if you’re in a serious clean-up mood.

We’re rolling this out to Pinners all week. We’d love for you to give it a try!

Albert Pereta Farre, Lead Product Designer, currently Pinning to Inspiration Bits.

There are all kinds of recaps and best-ofs this time of year, but Pinterest is all about getting creative and planning ahead. While we love a good 2014 rehash as much as anyone, it’s even more fun to start hatching plans for 2015.

To jump-start our planning, we came up with 100 Pin predictions for the year ahead. We looked at trending Pins in popular categories, Pins from our most influential Pinners and even a few hand-picked by Pinterest employees. Here are ten teasers:

1. Cauliflower is the new kale in Food & Drink

2. Woodworking is having a moment in DIY

3. Get ready for moar normcore in Fashion

4. Rug stencils hit Home

5. The juice craze continues in Fitness & Health

6. There’s a beard for every lumbersexual in Grooming & Beauty

7. Watches get even smarter in Tech

8. Double exposure photography goes digital in Art & Design

9. Iceland stays hot in Travel

10. Greens go vertical in Gardening

There are lots more (90 to be exact) ideas to try on our Pinterest 100 board.

Here’s to getting creative in 2015!

Mac Huynh, Brand Writer, currently pinning to Bookish.