Lady LUX

Digital scrapbook Pinterest is out for some cash. The site is creating new tools that allow businesses to calculate the number of visitors it sends to their websites, all in the name of starting up new money-generating features. Although Pinterest has no advertising that draws revenue, retailers such as The Gap, Patagonia and Dell use the website to promote their goods, said Business of Fashion.

Pinterest allows users to collect and display items they love. By supplying usage data to corporations, Pinterest takes a “pretty clear step in the direction” of turning Pinterest into a revenue-generating site, Greg Sterling, senior analyst with Opus Research, a San Francisco-based market research firm, said to Business to Fashion. ”They couldn’t really start charging people without some way of measuring the efficacy of the spend,” he said.

Last month the business generated $200 million in funding from venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, which valued the website at $2.5 billion.

Available at no cost to companies that use Pinterest, the new tool will supply data concerning Pinterest user activity, for example how often viewers click on a business’s online photos.

Pinterest allows consumers to make digital bulletin boards, amassing images and photos all geared around a theme such as travel or sports. The 38th most visited site by U.S. Web surfers in January, Pinterest drew around 30 million unique visitors that same month according to comScore.

“The goal is really to help websites understand what content is resonating with people on Pinterest,” Cat Lee, a product manager at Pinterest, told Reuters.

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