Celebrating the ‘anti-sell’ with Pinboard

Prior to Christmas, the social web was abuzz with the news that Yahoo was ditching the popular Delicious bookmarking site.

Within no time people started investigating alternatives to Delicious, including Springpad, Diigo and Pinboard.

Pinboard was one site that caught my eye initially, then I heard an interesting and frank interview with its founder Maciej Ceglowski on Net @ Nite with Amber Mac and Leo Laporte and decided to check it out further.

I like the way Pinboard describes itself as the “antisocial bookmarking site” that’s ideal for “introverts” who don’t necessarily want to share their bookmarks with the rest of the world.

However, what really impressed me was how Pinboard gave people not only reasons to switch to its site from Delicious but also reasons to stay with Delicious!

The brand is obviously mindful that many people are pretty hooked on Delicious and may be a little hesitant as to switch bookmarking providers.

Diigo, on the other hand, is a little more agressive and eager to transition people from Delicious to its own site. Nothing really wrong with that, it’s just I think Pinboard’s more understated approach is probably a little more respectful towards a much-loved competitor in Delicious and shows empathy for the decision its members are facing.

What can we learn from Pinboard’s approach?

• Stand for something – touting itself as the ‘antisocial’ bookmarking site sets Pinboard apart from its competitors. Being counterintuitive as it is (because the idea behind bookmarking sites is that they’re inherently social) also shows us a glimpse of the personality of the people behind the brand.
• Acknowledging publicly when a key competitor may be in trouble and expressing empathy for its customers rather than try and use the situation to steal customers. It’s called being decent, and folks out there like that.