Report: Roughly 20 Percent Of Pinterest’s Top 10 Users’ Followers Were Spammers And Fake Accounts

Last week, Pinterest began curtailing the number of spammers and fake accounts on its system, in an effort to clear its platform off unwanted elements. At the time, the company noted that this latest big sweep would mainly affect those with larger follower counts, or those who had purchased fake followers. The majority (99 percent) of users would lose fewer than 10 followers, Pinterest said. Today, we have some figures on what those drops looked like, at least in terms of their affect on top Pinterest accounts.
According to Lyle Dennis, co-creator of Pinterest user directory Top Pinterest Users, the top 10 most followed Pinterest users saw around a 20 percent decline in follower numbers immediately after the Pinterest purge. For example, the top Pinterest user (Joy Cho / Oh Joy!) had 12 million-plus followers before the clean out, and dropped to under 10 million afterwards. She has since gained again, and as of today sits at 10,124,648 followers.
Dennis says he didn’t keep historical data on-hand for the larger Pinterest user base – he just happened to have noticed the changes thanks to a screencap of the Pinterest top 10 which was posted to a social media news blog just before the spam crackdown.
Looking at the numbers again today, which have climbed again for some users since the purge, you can see that the event impacted the rankings, and even booted one user out of the top 10 entirely. Here’s how the numbers have changed for those users before and after the clean out:
Before:

1. Joy Cho/ Oh Joy!: 12,733,689
2. Bekka Palmer: 8,465,927
3. Maryann Rizzo: 8,073,270
4. Bonnie Tsang: 7,889,295
5. Jane Wang:  7,514,671
6. pejper:  6,826,436
7. molly pickering:  6,786,757
8. Jan of Poppytalk: 6,703,051
9. HonestlyWTF: 5,483,892
10. Olya Bastet: 5,162,212

After (as of today):

1. Joy Cho/ Oh Joy!: 10,124,648
2. Jane Wang:  6,876,464
3. Bekka Palmer: 6,785,853
4. Maryann Rizzo: 6,742,899
5. Bonnie Tsang: 5,911,135
6. molly pickering: 5,435,822
7. Jan of Poppytalk:  5,410,144
8. pejper:  5,057,767
9. HonestlyWTF:  4,392,324
10. Christine Martinez: 4,255,261

Important, please note!  These “after” numbers are current as of today – at the time when Dennis reported the immediate effects to us, some of the after numbers were even lower, with declines falling into a 20-25 percent range, depending on the user, he says.
Although the purge likely did only impact these larger user accounts to this extent, it’s a notable sweep, as the website itself only has around 40 million users globally, according to November numbers from comScore.
For those unfamiliar, the Top Pinterest Users website, also built by Hugo Gameiro, continually checks the top users and boards on Pinterest to ensure its numbers are accurate. However, it does so without using an official API, as Pinterest has not yet released an API publicly at this time. The site also organizes users into various categories, like WeFellow did back in Twitter’s earlier days.

LaunchGram Adds TV Shows To Their Alerts Service

Jay Donovan

posted 2 hours ago

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LaunchGram, which was recently accepted into the 500 Startups Accelerator, is an alert service that allows consumers to subscribe to news about imminently launching products of interest. After doing so, users receive extremely granular info and breaking news about those products, in the form of email alerts and product pages. (SMS alerts were available for a while, but were dropped due to low usage numbers).
We first told you about the service back in April, which at the time only let you subscribe to breaking news about video games, electronics, cars and movies. They have now added television shows to their list of alert-able items.
With television shows being distributed via so many digital channels these days — complete with unprecedented chatter by fans  — it’s a logical and timely choice to add to the LaunchGram offering. According to the team, television was the most requested addition to the service by users.
I think LaunchGram, as an idea, is an interesting one and honestly they are tracking a decent number of items at their site. How are they tracking them? I spoke with Co-Founder and CEO Andy Sparks and he told me that they have a “healthy combination of user-generated tips coupled with their own internal curation.” Ultimately, LaunchGram verifies the authenticity of news about a certain game or movie or TV show.
When it comes right down to it though — unlike some of their competition which employs armies of funders and workers by comparison —  the three LaunchGram founders are curating the content and are responsible for keeping it relevant. Having worked on some small blog teams myself, I can appreciate the effort the founders are putting into this project…all the while trying to manage the business side of the site too.

With Over 400,000 Users, Social Media Manager Buffer Gets A Refresh On Web & Mobile, Moves Away From Being A Destination Site

Buffer, the social media manager that allows you to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, is today launching a redesign of its service on both web and mobile. The updates, six months in development, are meant to increase focus on analytics and third-party integrations, encouraging users to post to Buffer across the web, instead of visiting the website itself.
According to Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich, the biggest change today is that the company is no longer trying to make either the web or iPhone app a dashboard – meaning a destination for people to add content. Instead, he says, the company wants them to add content through Buffer’s integrations across the web.
The reasoning behind today’s changes has to do with the fact that, following the release of the Buffer API in August, over 40 percent of Buffer’s updates were posted through the API and buttons, and this trend continues to grow today. The company wants to push that number closer to 100 percent if possible. “We heavily try to discourage people to add to Buffer through the web app or iPhone app,” says Widrich.

With the new web app, Buffer’s redesign increases the focus on other features, like analytics, managing the updates queue, and discovering more apps where Buffer is integrated. Specifically, the web application now allows you to copy updates from one stream across to other social accounts (e.g. drag-and-drop updates from your Twitter account to your Facebook); it introduces a “shuffle” option to let Buffer’s algorithm randomize the order; it now lets you discover your top posts via the improved analytics section and copy them directly to another social account; and it lets you reorder your profiles more easily.
The company also updated the iPhone app, which not only complements Buffer’s web application, but can also stand independently, never requiring use of the web at all. You can now connect all your social accounts from within the app, upload and Buffer images directly in the app, and see more detailed analytics (mentions, likes, comments – when before it only supported clicks and retweets). It also offers a media-rich preview of your queue, including images, videos, and link previews.

Widrich says that today, 10,000 websites carry the Buffer button, and it’s now integrated in over 50 app integrations, including Reeder, Pocket, Feedly and more. Of the 410,000 Buffer users, around 10 percent (44,566) have installed the iPhone app, a number Widrich hopes will grow with today’s update. The Android app will be available in Q1 2013.

Overall, Buffer users are consistently engaged, with 30 percent of the 410,000 active monthly, 20 percent weekly and 10 percent daily. The company also now has 7,000 paid subscribers and a revenue run rate of $900,000.
Widrich is also excited to report that the Buffer team of seven have gotten their Visas and is now heading back to the U.S. next week. (You may remember that, in December last year, the team raised $400,000 in angel funding, but had to head back to Europe because of immigration laws.)