Place Pins, for those who are into that

In other travel industry news, Pinterest decided that it’s time for geo-locating its pinboards. It works like this: with newly launched “place pins,” users can create boards around a specific location and add pins to them. Pins can include a map, photos, info, and whatever else a user decides it’s relevant. This is quite a nice addition to users’ online planning process, where quest for inspiration and location-related information beats all other steps in the funnel.

More interesting to me, however, are the partnership opportunities that place pins offer. As of now, Pinterest banded up with Foursquare to use its API (Foursuare allows users lists and also shows them on the map, but information is limited to photos and reviews) and Mapbox, which provided the maps.

In the works are partnerships with Disney, BBC Travel, Conde Nast Traveler and the load of other travel-related publications and hotels. Four Seasons, for example, has pulled its Foursquare reviews and photos and turned them into place pins for its “Gastronomic Travel” board. You can check it out here. Conde Nast traveler, on the other hand, pulls info directly from its magazine for its “Top 100 Hotels in the World” list.