Websites using Pinboard

Okay, let s break down Pinboard, covering its overview, revenue (which is a bit tricky), alternatives, pricing, and customer care details.

Pinboard Overview

• What it is: Pinboard is a minimalist, no-frills social bookmarking service. It allows you to save links (bookmarks) to web pages, add descriptions, and tag them for easy organization and later retrieval.
• Core Features:
  • Saving Bookmarks: Core functionality is to save and organize web pages.
  • Tagging: Robust tagging system for categorizing bookmarks.
  • Description: Add notes/summaries to saved pages.
  • Full-text Search: Search within the content of saved pages.
  • Archiving: Optional feature to archive web pages, so you can still access them even if the original page disappears.
  • Privacy: You can set your bookmarks to be private, public, or shared with select people.
  • Import and Export: Easily import bookmarks from other services and export your Pinboard data.
  • API Access: Developers can use Pinboard s API to integrate it into other applications.
• Philosophy: Pinboard is known for its straightforward design, reliability, speed, and a focus on data ownership and user privacy. It s often described as the antithesis of more mainstream social platforms. It s favored by power users, researchers, and those who want to own their data, rather than be controlled by algorithms.
• Target Audience: People who want a reliable, private, and efficient way to manage and search through their online bookmarks. Often tech-savvy and value data control and simplicity.

Revenue

• Pinboard is not venture-backed and operates on a paid subscription model. This is a core part of its philosophy. It s a subscription service, and the owner (Maciej Cegłowski) has publicly stated he doesn t want to rely on advertising or sell user data.
• Exact revenue figures are not publicly available. However, we know it is a profitable company due to its long and stable existence (it has been running since 2009) and the fact it does not rely on outside investment. The owner, Maciej, has been open about its relatively modest size and the fact he runs the service largely himself.
• Revenue is directly tied to the number of subscribers.
• Sustainability: The subscription-based model, a lack of debt, and its minimalist nature help ensure the service s sustainability.

Alternatives

Here are some popular alternatives to Pinboard, categorized by their approach:

• Similar in Spirit (Minimalist, Paid):
  • Raindrop.io: A more visually-rich bookmark manager with better collaboration features and a wide variety of features like nested folders.
  • Hypothes.is: Primarily focused on annotation, but also functions as a bookmarking tool with a focus on collaboration.
• More Feature-Rich (Often Free, Freemium):
  • Pocket: Allows saving articles, videos, and other web content. Focused on read-it-later capabilities. A good solution for those primarily saving articles for later consumption.
  • Instapaper: Another read-it-later service, similar to Pocket.
  • Diigo: More feature-rich than Pinboard, includes annotation, highlighting, and social features.
• Browser Based Bookmarking (Free, Built In):
  • Browser Bookmarks: All major web browsers have native bookmarking features. While basic, it is free and built right in to most setups.
  • Browser based tools like chrome plugins and others add on to browser bookmarking.
• Note-Taking Tools with Web Clipping (Varied Pricing):
  • Evernote: Can be used for web clipping and note-taking, but it s a more general-purpose tool.
  • Notion: Powerful workspace with flexible note-taking, project management, and web clipping capabilities.
  • OneNote: Microsoft s note-taking application.

Pricing

• Pinboard offers a simple, straightforward pricing model:
  • Regular Account: Around $22/year, This gives you unlimited bookmarks and full-text searching. This is the main account that most people would use.
  • Archiving Add-on: Around $25/year, This includes the ability to archive the pages you save so that you can see them even if the original website is taken down.
• No Free Tier: There is no free trial or free tier.
• Transparent Pricing: The pricing structure is clear, upfront, and hasn t changed much over the years.

Customer Care Details

• No Dedicated Support Team: Pinboard doesn t have a dedicated customer support team in the traditional sense.
• Support via Email and FAQ: The primary way to get help is through email to the owner, Maciej, or by consulting the FAQ on the Pinboard website.
• Community-Driven Support: The user community is relatively active, and users often help each other with questions and troubleshooting.
• Personalized Response (From Owner): Maciej tends to respond to customer emails personally, offering tailored solutions and advice.
• Not Instantaneous Support: Due to the small size and lack of dedicated staff, the response may not always be instant.
• Focus on the Product s Stability: The focus is on keeping the site reliable and functional, which minimizes the need for constant support.
• Unique Approach: The lack of a typical customer support model is a design choice, consistent with the minimalist and independent ethos of Pinboard.

In Summary:

Pinboard is a unique service that stands out for its simplicity, reliability, and focus on user privacy and data ownership. It s not for everyone, but its dedicated user base appreciates its straightforward approach. It s a reliable workhorse for people who need to manage large numbers of bookmarks, and its subscription model ensures its sustainability. It differs greatly from Silicon Valley-backed offerings because it is not trying to grow quickly or constantly add new features, and its customer support model is unusual but tends to meet its customer s needs.