No so Pinteresting after all. Facebook began testing Collections on October 8th. But today I found that photos users collected had disappeared and so had posts with Collect or Want buttons . I asked Facebook and it confirmed that indeed, “the test is now complete”. Maybe no one got hooked on it. Maybe Facebook will try breaking into commerce discovery some other way. But for now Collections has been shelved.
Pinterest is an undeniable success. People want to nest online, saving and curating the beautiful things they find. Pinterest made it easy for friends to see the things you’ve discovered, and sometimes click through to buy them.
Facebook seemed to think if this nesting and product photo sharing was so popular, maybe it could improve itself by offering Collections. So it ran a little test, letting a handful of businesses such as Pottery Barn add Collect or Want buttons to photos of their products they shared to the feed. Then it watched to see if people clicked.
It seems they didn’t. Collections felt a little awkward. We’re so used to Liking and commenting, that clicking Want or Collect didn’t seem very natural. Stories about what was saved could end up in the news feed. However, the actual collections [Facebook's version of the pinboard] felt buried on the profile and drowned out by other things to do on the site. It was also rather limiting and overly commercial, since you could only pin products from partnered businesses, not just anything you found on the web.
So either it didn’t gain traction or Facebook’s now believes there’s a different, better way to tackle the problem. Either way it’s gone for now, and Collections have been erased from the Timelines and Activity Logs of people who created them. So much for data portability, but this was a very short test, one of many Facebook is tinkering with.
In any case, social commerce sharing and discovery is not going away. It could blossom into a core way people shop. Facebook wants to be the place where you discover things you care about, including products.
And surely it wouldn’t mind these businesses paying to promote their products, buying fans to share them with, or giving it a cut of sales. That’s why I bet we might see Collections resurrected in some form.
Maybe something not so Pinterest-y. Or may a more accurate copy. Personally, I think a more flexible way to organize photos and posts into specific layouts for sharing might be a more natural way to nest. We’ll see. Just don’t expect Facebook to give up on photo-friendly commerce discovery.
[via Natalie Dee]
