Add Presence To Pinterest With Pinstamatic

Each week Heather Moorefield-Lang, Education Librarian at Virginia Tech and current chairperson of the American Association of School Librarians Best Websites for Teaching & Learning sends out recommendations for applications and websites for people to try.  She is an amazing resource.  My favorites' list on Twitter is filled with possibilities, thanks to her.

Last week she mentioned a tool which could be used to enhance the Pinterest experience.  This free tool is called Pinstamatic.  Pinstamatic is based in Brighton, Sussex (UK) and is nearly two years old.

When you first access their home page it looks like the image below.  Each of the icons along with top represent items which can be added to a board. (Personally, I think their graphic design is outstanding.)

From left to right the icons represent adding: a website (1), quotes and text (2), a sticky note (3), a song from Spotify (4), a Twitter username which will show their last tweet (5), a calendar date (6), a map (7) and an image (8).

Here's a quick look at each screen when adding any of the items to a Pinterest board.  For a website all you need to do is enter in the URL. A thumbnail screenshot appears to the right.

When adding a quotation or text you have four font style choices.  As you type it is entered in at the right.  There is no need to select the Preview button.

I often wonder how I survived without sticky notes.  It only stands to reason they can be added to a Pinterest board.  You have several color choices.  As when adding text, when you type the message it appears at the right.

I recently joined Spotify so it is interesting to see how this option works.  When entering in a song title, a drop-down menu appears so you can select a single song.  When chosen, the preview appears on the right.

For the Twitter and calendar selections, simply enter in a handle or a date when prompted.  I had trouble getting an image to appear for the Twitter handle in Preview mode.   It was not working properly at the time of this post.  I have sent a message via their Support option.

For adding a map you are asked to type in a location.  You can add a title and short description about the place and it's purpose on your board.  You can also move around the pin to get a more precise location.  

This shows the original image on the right with the changed image at the bottom on the left.

When adding a photo, you can select it from:  My Computer, Take Picture, Facebook, Gmail, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Flickr, Instagram, Web Images or Link (URL).  You have choice of adding a caption at the top or the bottom.  Captions can be aligned to the left, center or right.  Or if you choose Filter, you have many different "looks" which can be applied to your image.

I decided to create a board for an author study of Ame Dyckman using all of these options.  I included Dan Yaccarino and K. G. Campbell as illustrators of her books.  For some reason there seemed to be a glitch loading the websites sometimes.  Most of the time the preview image would appear but the site would not always load.  I primarily use Google Chrome as a browser.  I have sent questions to the Pinstamatic team and am waiting for a reply.  Here is a link to my board titled Ame Dyckman Author Study.

I can't wait to create more boards using Pinstamatic!  It couldn't be easier to add these extra types of content to a Pinterest board without the use of editing software.  In an educational setting Pinstamatic has many uses; as a study board, as a thematic board, as a research project board or as a field trip board.  I think I am going to use it for my next #10for10 post in August.  I will update this post about the minor snafus I had today as soon as I hear from the Pinstamatic support team.