????只有極少數初創企業的增長強勁到（暫時）不用在意盈利，而本?西爾伯曼所領導的圖片分享網站Pinterest就是其中之一。西爾伯曼正專注于攻克互聯網上的一大難題。當用戶搜索“灰色西榆樹沙發”（這樣具體的東西時），谷歌（Google）好用極了。但假如你想廣泛探索呢？在5月29日于洛杉磯郊外舉行的AllThingsD大會上，西爾伯曼在演講中解釋道：“用戶如何發現事物確實是個難題。‘我的客廳應該怎樣布置？’這種問題是我們目前最感興趣的。”

????這個問題眼下與我本人切身相關。我同戀人弗朗西斯剛剛搬家，我們一直在考慮該怎么布置新家。Pinterest擁有一系列視覺效果極佳的數字公告板，于是自然成了我們組織這番搜索的工具。我創建并與她共享了一塊叫做“上西區”的數字公告板，我們在上面“釘”滿了各種圖片：沙發、地毯、燈具，有時候還有塑料麋鹿頭（因為我聽說它掛在墻上特別好看）。我們都不知道自己到底想要什么，所以我們一頭扎進Pinterest的海量圖片中，在全網搜索，把覺得有意思的圖片都“釘”起來。

????Pinterest的用戶群正在壯大，我們倆不過是其中的一個縮影。過去一年中，Pinterest的用戶數飆升了82％，達到了5,400萬。近期一輪金額高達2億美元的融資對Pinterest的估值為25億美元。Pinterest是整個互聯網上為其它網站帶去推薦流量最多的網站之一。不過，公司深居簡出的聯席創始人兼首席執行官本?西爾伯曼仍然認為Pinterest還是一家小公司。提到公司未來的計劃以及商業模式，他三緘其口，只說：“我們目前還沒有實現盈利。”

????Pinterest最有可能盈利的機遇，很可能就在我和弗朗西斯追隨的那些信息來源中。它們包括：我的朋友卡拉、西榆樹，以及一位非常有品位的大學同學。目前，我在以同樣的方式搜索，這些資源對我來說都非常有用。Facebook等社交網絡正在進行試驗，希望對用戶而言，系統推送的廣告能變得同自己好友發布的內容一樣有用。可是當我上Facebook時，我并不是特意要選購商品。但Pinterest就不同了。西爾伯曼說：“思索這個命題的時候，我們認為人們所思所想、所作所為以及所購買的東西之間都存在著直接的聯系。這一點顯而易見。”

????未來這可能成為一個巨大的商機。但眼下，西爾伯曼還需要繼續改進Pinterest，把它變得更簡潔美觀。（財富中文網）

????譯者：項航

????Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann leads one of a small number of privileged startups for whom growth is so strong that money is not (yet) the point. Instead he's focused on solving one of the largest conundrums on the web. Google is great when you're searching for "West Elm couch gray," but what happens when you want to discover more broadly? Speaking at the AllThingsD conference outside Los Angeles on May 29, he explained, "The problem of how you discover things is a really tough one. Problems like, 'What should my living room look like?' That's at the heart of our interests right now."

????That's a personal question at the moment. My partner, Frances, and I just moved into a new home, and we've been trying to figure out how to decorate. Pinterest -- the visually stunning collection of digital pin boards -- has become the logical organizing tool for the search. I created a board called "Upper West Side" that I shared with her, and we've populated it with couches and rugs and lamps and the occasional plastic moose head (looks great on a wall, I'm told). Neither of us knows what we want exactly, so we plunge through images on Pinterest and on the larger web, pinning anything that looks interesting.

????We're part of a growing community of Pinterest power-users. In the past year, Pinterest has jumped 82% to 54 million users. Thanks to a recent $200 million round of funding, it has been valued at $2.5 billion. And it is one of the largest sources of referral traffic on the web. Yet its reclusive co-founder and CEO, Ben Silbermann, still thinks of the company as small. He's reticent to offer too much information on plans for the future or suggest a business model, saying only: "Right now, we don't make money."

????The most compelling opportunity for Pinterest to turn a profit off of this likely exists in the list of sources that Frances and I follow. They include my friend Carla, West Elm, and a former college classmate with great taste. Each of these resources is useful to me at the moment that I'm searching in the same way. Social networks like Facebook (FB) are experimenting with opportunities to make advertising in the newsfeed as useful as content from my friends is to me, but usually when I'm on Facebook, I'm not shopping explicitly. That's not so with Pinterest. Says Silbermann, "When we think about this mission -- we think there's a direct link between the things people think, the things people do, and the things they buy. It's explicit."

????In the future that could be a big opportunity. But at the moment, Silbermann will stick to making Pinterest better -- more simple and more beautiful -- for its pinners.