Pinterest is enabling copyright theft on a global scale and doing immeasurable damage to artists, photographers, and copyright holders all over the world.

If you’re a photographer/artist, I think you need to run over there and read the full article NOW: Pinterest Enables Copyright Theft On A Global Scale

He raised some concerns that I hadn’t even thought about yet, like search engine competition.

By the way, one thing that I did learn by reading this article –> Fine Art America recognizes that some photographer/artists have completely embraced pinning while others have not, so they’ve made accommodations for both sides. They allow pinning BUT you can disable it in your account if you’d like to do so.

I had resumed pinning after Pinterest finally changed their TOS. After reading this, will I continue pinning? I’m not sure. What are your thoughts?

Either way, I think I’m even more in love with Fine Art America than ever! <3

Related Articles:

• Pinterest Updates Its Terms Of Service

Naturally, many artists and photographers were upset with this issue. Some even deleted their pinboards as a result.

Pinterest just announced that they have changed their TOS. Here is the announcement from their blog:

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working on an update to our Terms. When we first launched Pinterest, we used a standard set of Terms. We think that the updated Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy are easier to understand and better reflect the direction our company is headed in the future. We’d encourage you to read these changes in their entirety, but we thought there were a few changes worth noting:

Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for us to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.

We updated our Acceptable Use Policy and we will not allow pins that explicitly encourage self-harm or self-abuse.

We released simpler tools for anyone to report alleged copyright or trademark infringements.

Finally, we added language that will pave the way for new features such as a Pinterest API and Private Pinboards.

We think these changes are important and we encourage you to review the new documents here. These Terms will go into effect for all users on April 6, 2012.

Like everything at Pinterest, these updates are a work in progress that we will continue to improve upon. We’re working hard to make Pinterest the best place for you to find inspiration from people who share your interests. We’ve gotten a lot of help from our community as we’ve crafted these Terms.

I have to look through their new TOS carefully. I’m still concerned about liability issues, but this is a welcome change and a step in the right direction.

What do you think? Are you going to continue or begin using Pinterest?

Links:

Pinterest Blog Post Announcement

Pinterest: Terms of Service

Pinterest: Acceptable Use Policy

Pinterest: Privacy Policy

Related Articles:

• Fine Art America Makes A Stand On Pinterest

It appears that CafePress will purchase Logo’d for $8.3 million. Of that, $7.5 million will be in cash and $800,000 will be in shares of common stock.

Logo’d is the company behind the following brands:

1. LogoSportwear.com

2. TeamSportswear.com (a team uniform printer)

3. Custom School Sportswear (a school apparel site)

4. Custom T-Shirts Printed (a t-shirt print shop)

Related Articles:

• CafePress: 30% Off Customized Photo Products
• CafePress Sale: Up to 50% Off T-Shirts!
• CafePress: Free Shipping + Up To 30% Off T-Shirts
• CafePress Sale: 25% Off Pajamas
• CafePress Shopkeeper Sale Starts Tuesday (Feb. 21, 2012 to Feb. 23, 2012)

Here’s the fine print:

* Save 30% off your order of Make customized Photo products, excluding shipping charges, gift wrap charges and applicable sales tax. Excludes Gift Certificates, SIGG bottles, Thermos products and bulk orders. Coupon code BLISS must be entered at check out. Promotion starts on February 27, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on March 2nd, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. (PST). Offer cannot be combined with any other coupons or promotions and may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice. This promotion cannot be applied to past orders.

Related Articles:

• CafePress Sale: Up to 50% Off T-Shirts!
• CafePress Sale: 25% Off Pajamas
• CafePress: Free Shipping + Up To 30% Off T-Shirts
• Zazzle: Red, White & You Sale!
• Imagekind: Save Up To 30% Off Your Order This Weekend

Click link to shop –> CafePress

Sale ends February 29, 2012. See below for details:

*Combine coupon code DASH with already reduced prices on-site to receive additional savings off t-shirts. Discounted t-shirt prices are set forth on site. Coupon code saves an additional 20% off your t-shirt order from CafePress, excluding shipping charges, gift wrap charges, taxes and custom duties. Coupon code only applies to t-shirts. Excludes bulk orders. Must enter coupon code DASH at check out. Promotion starts on February 27, 2012, at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on February 29, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. (PST). All orders must be from the CafePress Marketplace. Offer valid online at CafePress only, cannot be combined with any other coupons and may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice. This promotion cannot be applied to past orders.

Related Articles:

• CafePress: 30% Off Customized Photo Products
• CafePress Sale: 25% Off Pajamas
• CafePress: Free Shipping + Up To 30% Off T-Shirts
• Zazzle: Red, White & You Sale!
• Imagekind: Save Up To 30% Off Your Order This Weekend

Here’s the fine print:

*Free Economy shipping for CafePress.com orders. Delivery address must be within the United States and cannot be a PO Box. All orders will be Economy shipping unless the order is not eligible for Economy shipping (e.g., order exceeds Economy weight restrictions), in which case order will be automatically upgraded to free Standard shipping. Coupon code VIPSHIP must be entered at check out. Promotion starts on February 25, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on February 28, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. (PST). All orders must be from the CafePress Marketplace. Offer valid online at CafePress.com only, cannot be combined with any other coupons or promotions and may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice. This promotion cannot be applied to past orders. elled at anytime without notice. This promotion cannot be applied to past orders.

** Only applies to short-sleeved t-shirts, subject to availability. Excludes bulk orders. Discounted prices are set forth on the website, no coupon code required. Promotion starts on February 6, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on February 28, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. (PST). Discount can be combined with other coupon code offers. All orders must be from the CafePress Marketplace. Offer valid online only, and may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice. This promotion cannot be applied to past orders.

Related Articles:

• CafePress: 30% Off Customized Photo Products
• CafePress Sale: Up to 50% Off T-Shirts!
• CafePress Sale: 25% Off Pajamas
• Zazzle: Red, White & You Sale!
• CafePress Shopkeeper Sale Starts Tuesday (Feb. 21, 2012 to Feb. 23, 2012)

KayeCee’s Tip –> Be sure to use a URL shortener so that your Zazzle ref links stay intact at Pinterest! You’ll probably have to edit each pin to add your shortened URL.

Below are the details from the message I received this morning:

St. Patrick’s Day Pinterest Challenge

We know that many of you have been extremely excited by the new image sharing site, Pinterest! We love it as well, and wanted to create a fun St. Patrick’s Day themed challenge that incorporates both Zazzle and Pinterest.

A Little Info about Pinterest

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that allows users to organize and share images that they find on the internet. You can create your own boards for any topic you can think of, pin images to those boards, and browse pinboards created by others. Once you create an account, you can add the Pin-It Button to your Bookmarks Bar which will allow you to easily “Pin” any image from any page on the web to one of your pinboards.

Challenge Details

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, so show off that Irish pride (everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, right?) by joining in our Pinterest Challenge for your chance to win a $100 Zazzle Gift Certificate! Here is how it works:

Create a pinboard with the title “My Favorite St. Patrick’s Day T-shirts”.
Pin your favorite St. Patrick’s Day T-shirt designs to your board! You can pin as many designs as you’d like, but make sure that at least 10 of them are from Zazzle! (You can definitely add more than 10.)
Send an email to pinterestchallenge@zazzle.com with the Subject Line: “St. Patrick’s Day Pinterest Challenge” containing a link to your pinboard.
That’s it! Have fun with it and feel free to browse other people’s pinboards!

Prizes:

1 Grand Prize winner will receive a $100 Zazzle Gift Certificate and their pinboard featured on the Zazzle Blog.
4 additional winners will receive $25 Zazzle Gift Certificates.

Related Articles:

• Zazzle: Red, White & You Sale!
• Zazzle Adds Customer Reviews To Product Pages
• Zazzle Bulk Tools, ProSeller Program And Other Updates
• Zazzle Launches Custom Embroidery
• Zazzle Limits Google Feed To 100 Products

* Save 25% off pajama sets from CafePress, excluding shipping charges, gift wrap charges, taxes and custom duties. Excludes pajamify and bulk orders. Coupon code SLEEPY must be entered at check out. Promotion starts on February 21, 2012, at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on February 21, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. (PST). All orders must be from the CafePress Marketplace. Offer valid online at CafePress only, cannot be combined with any other coupons or promotions and may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice. This promotion cannot be applied to past orders.

Related Articles:

• CafePress: 30% Off Customized Photo Products
• CafePress Sale: Up to 50% Off T-Shirts!
• CafePress: Free Shipping + Up To 30% Off T-Shirts
• Zazzle: Red, White & You Sale!
• Imagekind: Save Up To 30% Off Your Order This Weekend

Here is the fine print for the sale:

15% of the product net sale price will be deducted when one or more qualifying products are purchased and the coupon code REDWHITENYOU is applied at checkout. For most products, the net sale price is the price of the product (excluding shipping and taxes). For Zazzle Custom Stamps, the net sale price is the difference between the price of the Zazzle Custom Stamps (excluding shipping and taxes) and the face value of the postage. Offer is valid until February 21, 2012 at 11:59pm PT. This offer does not apply to past purchases and may not be combined with any other Zazzle promotional or volume discount offers. If a volume discount applies to your order, you will receive either the discount set forth in this offer or the standard volume discount, whichever is greater. Offer valid on Zazzle.com only.

Related Articles:

• CafePress: 30% Off Customized Photo Products
• CafePress Sale: Up to 50% Off T-Shirts!
• CafePress Sale: 25% Off Pajamas
• CafePress: Free Shipping + Up To 30% Off T-Shirts
• Imagekind: Save Up To 30% Off Your Order This Weekend

Uhm… yeah… the photo above pretty much shows the reaction that several Zazzle shopkeepers had lately when they visited their shop and realized that Zazzle now has reviews displayed underneath their products.

Granted, reviews can be very helpful for online businesses. It helps to add keyword fodder for the search engines and helps customers in making purchase decisions.

Amazon, a site that offers a marketplace for a variety of sellers to hawk their wares, is a prime example of a company that utilizes customer reviews in a very efficient manner.

At the top of each Amazon product page itself, you’ll find a little star rating next to the product title so that a customer can tell at a glance what kind of average rating a product gets. That is followed by a link that tells the customer how many reviews that particular product has received.

The customer can either click the link to see all of the reviews, or scroll down to read the item description and find the first three reviews at the bottom of the page. If they decide that they want to read more reviews, they can click a link to find the rest.

Personally, I believe reviews can help Zazzle’s bottom line, BUT they’ve got some problem solving to do first.

Right now, there are several poor reviews showing… from what I’ve seen so far, various complaints about printing and sizing. That tells me that Zazzle needs to work on some quality control issues and conveying sizing correctly to customers BEFORE they start slapping those reviews up.

As a customer, I’d take one look at some of those reviews and head straight to another company, like Skreened or Cafepress.

Another problem that I have with the reviews as they stand right now is that reviews for designs OTHER than the one I’m looking at are showing.

If I’m at Amazon and thinking of purchasing a Hello Kitty calendar, WHY would I want to read a review about a KISS calendar? I don’t care about the KISS calendar! I’m interested in finding out whether or not the Hello Kitty calendar is a good investment for my daughter’s room.

As a shopkeeper, it just looks like one more way of possibly sending customers that I’ve sent to Zazzle off to make purchases with other designers. And I most certainly don’t want my readers who are thinking of making a purchase to assume I am the one who has printing issues.

Let’s take a peek at my “Nurses Make It All Better” coffee mug from one of my shops:

Nurses Make It All Better Coffee Mug by LifeOverHere

If you’ll scroll down, you’ll see that there are no reviews for this product. However, keep scrolling and you’ll find reviews for other products.

When I first landed on the page, I was confused. Like a lot of people, I skim when I read. I wondered why on earth a customer was talking about kittens on their mug when mine had NOTHING to do with cats.

Studies have shown that most surfers notice things on the left of the screen moreso than the right, which is exactly what I do. The words, “Reviews From Customers” was the only phrase that registered in my brain as I flew through the page.

Several confused seconds later, I FINALLY noticed the pictures of the other products on the right of each review and it dawned on me that THESE were reviews for other products… not mine. Everything fell into place then and I understood why the reviews seemed so “off” to me.

As a customer? It’s good to know that there are printing issues with certain products. I’d probably find another company to purchase from for those particular items.

As a shopkeeper? I don’t want those issues reflecting on me as a designer or photographer. I also don’t want one more way to lose sales to other shopkeepers.

It also makes me more choosy about what products I’ll be designing for in the future. If there are a ton of complaints about the printing on XYZ product, I probably won’t bother adding them to any of my shops.

What about you? Like the reviews? Hate them? Share your thoughts below!

For More Great Content, Visit POD For You!

Related Articles:

• Zazzle: St. Patrick’s Day Pinterest Challenge
• Zazzle: Red, White & You Sale!
• Zazzle Bulk Tools, ProSeller Program And Other Updates
• Zazzle Launches Custom Embroidery
• Zazzle Limits Google Feed To 100 Products