If you are asked to name a few social networking sites, inadvertently, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will pop up in your mind. In recent past, two major social networking sites debuted themselves, which have shown phenomenal growth. Google+ (which started off in mid 2011) and Pinterest (which came into existence in 2010) have scaled new heights of success.

Pinterest, a site where users can upload images of things that interest them, has seen a huge growth in the last couple of weeks. In January 2012 alone, Pinterest had 17 million page views. Unofficial sources claim, there are 4 million subscribers to this photo sharing network. Although Pinterest is still an “invitation-only” platform, the user base is expanding and how! It jumped from 44 to 26th in Alexa rankings in the U.S. in January. Apart from growth in web traffic, Pinterest is slowly growing as a referral medium for websites. According to a shareaholic report, Pinterest drives more traffic on the web than LinkedIn, Google+ and Tumblr combined. And it already rivals Twitter and Google in referral traffic.

On Pinterest the stress is on beauty. The “Pinboards” where users share their pictures has various categories which makes the site look focused. 80% of the users on Pinterest are women according to Google Ad data. Users on Pinterest mostly upload images of lustrous couture, gorgeous food or coveted items. Not just for passionate photographers, Pinterest is now generating a lot of traffic for retailers too. The inherent originality in Pinterest seems to be the driving factor for its great success. Unlike other sites, here no one classifies what’s “inspiring” for you.

Rumours have been doing the round sin the grapevines of Silicon Valley that Google is interested in acquiring Pinterest, and may be integrate it into Google+. Will that soon become a reality? Will Pinterest take over Tumblr in popularity? Answers lie in the future.

Have you tried “Pinning your Interests” yet?

Disclaimer: The legal copyright of the images belongs to the respective copyright owners.