Yahoo Finance Pinterest's new Today tabs offers curated boards and coronavirus info
The company made a one-stop shop to keep you motivated.
Pinterest has historically done a very good job at battling misinformation on its platform, doing its best to hide anti-vaccine content and more recently providing custom search results related to the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, as more and more people are sheltering in place in their homes, Pinterest has seen its users increasingly search for inspiration around things like recipes, kids activities and self-care.
To get people to the topics they're looking for faster, today Pinterest is launching a new "Today" tab that you'll see in the top navigation bar on its iOS and Android apps. The company wants it to be a one-stop source to see trending pins as well as curated topics based on the activity Pinterest is seeing with its users.
Unsurprisingly, coronavirus-related searches continue to be huge on Pinterest, so the company plans to include "expert" information from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control front and center in the Today tab. Tapping into the "Coronavirus advice from experts" collection shows pins that include videos on how to prevent spreading COVID-19, how to keep your food safe, proper hand-washing techniques, and when you should use a face mask.
Scrolling through the rest of the Today feed shows topics like art projects for toddlers, self-help topics like "spread some kindness," tutorials on picking up new skills like yoga and knitting and more. It looks like the Today feed will, naturally, be refreshed daily, and it's not an endless scroll. There were about 10 topics when I checked it out this morning, and at the bottom there's a message to "come back tomorrow for more inspiration." In a lot of ways, it's similar to the Today stream in Apple's App Store, which similarly offers curated daily editorial topics without overwhelming people with content.
Pinterest also noticed searches for "calming quotes" had doubled in the last few weeks, while "stress quotes" tripled, so the company is also the "compassionate search" feature it released on mobile last summer to the web. If you haven't seen it, it's a group of guided activities that were created in consultation with emotional health experts. It includes things like short guided meditation or breathing exercises as well as prompts to help people feel gratitude to others or compassion to themselves. At a rather stressful time, it makes sense to surface these sorts of things for as many people as possible.
In addition to all this, Pinterest has a banner at the top of its homepage directing people to a collection of its resources on coronavirus as well as some boards for inspiration and de-stressing. The company is also aggressively removing any misinformation it finds on COVID-19 as well as making it easy for users to report anything they find.
