First the bad news: we’re still as anxious to re-integrate with Pinterest functionality as you are.

Next up, we have a really cool UI (that’s user interface) change to tell you about.

The Spinwheel? We moved it to the upper right. Now it won’t get in the way of the pretty.

Don’t worry, that’s not the only new thing we’ve got going. Hang on to your hats, we now have a feature many of you have been asking for: the ability to spin multiple categories. You want Instagram and someecards? You got it. Want to alternate between YouTube Trending and 500px? We’re all over it.

Since we’ve added user accounts, your history is saved from one session to the next! Now you don’t have to worry if you closed your browser window on accident before sharing the awesome.

Facebook and Twitter spinning? You’ve got it! (I already mentioned someecards, that’s new, too)

We’ve also been working on how we pull the information so that we can give you the freshest content possible while avoiding duplicates.

Hang tight, more neat stuff (like Twitter sharing) is on the way.

Spin on!

We’re on the new server! Hurray! This is fabulous news, you see, when we first started building SpinPicks, we had no idea how quickly we would grow and how quickly that we would max out and strain our old server.

Paul has been working to switch us over from PHP to Ruby based code for our new home in the cloud. We’re now scalable and ready for all the traffic and spinning you can possibly throw our way. We also are now using a secure connection for your spinning safety. Please keep your hands and feet inside the app until we come to a complete stop.

Who am I kidding? There’s no stopping this ride.

With the switch to the new server, you’ll notice that we are abandoning the secret login. You now create your very own SpinPicks account at http://beta.spinpicks.com

What will user accounts allow us to do?

Having SpinPicks accounts will allow us to create a better experience for you as we continue to add features, like ratings, which are coming soon. (Having ratings will allow us to do some REALLY cool things in the future, things that make my little geek brain go, “SQUEE!”)

In addition to user accounts, we’re working to add as many platforms as we can.

As of last night, we’ve added 500px and brand new YouTube categories for your spinning pleasure. 500px is a beautiful photography site and I can’t stop hitting spin in the Editor’s Choice category. (Actually I just have the auto-spin running on my second monitor, which totally messes with my concentration, but OH THE PRETTY!)  Which reminds me, we are now adding multiple categories under the new services.

Later today we are hoping to be able to spin your Facebook news feed. How cool will that be? Hang on and find out.

Finally, don’t worry, we are working as hard as we can to restore access to Pinterest.

Starting yesterday around 11am Eastern Paul and I began getting many versions of the following email:

Hi, I love the free version of SpinPicks, but suddenly it’s not working. Well, at least the Pinterest feeds won’t spin.
Any advice?
Signed,
Spin out in Spartanburg

We are replying to these emails with the following:

Hi!

As of yesterday, Pinterest is having issues that affect apps like ours. It’s a little bit out of our control, but we’re doing everything we can to help resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience and letting us know about your issue. We apologize for the inconvenience!

Paul and I firmly believe this is a temporary issue. While you don’t get to see what’s happening, behind the scenes, please be assured we are working hard to not only fix the missing Pinterest  feeds, but to bring you lots of new, cool platfors to Spin.

In the mean time, why not give Instagram, FlickR (cc), TwitPic, Reddit/r or PicPlz a spin? There are lots of cool things to see.

Spin on!

(And thanks again for your patience!)

I know we’ve been a little quiet here at SpinPicks, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Paul and I have been in head down work / travel mode. Good things are coming! Also? Jet lag and red eye flights are evil.

In the meantime, I want to warn all of you about the existence of malicious pins. Here at SpinPicks we do our best to filter out bad pins / feeds the moment they come to our attention, but as with any platform, there’s always the chance of something slipping under the radar.

Today, while making sure everything was working (I wasn’t playing with the app, honest!) I clicked to view the source of a pin, instead of going to the site it should, I was redirected to pintrerets.com which gave a dialogue box prompting me to download a “Pinterest Tool”.

If I hadn’t been paying close attention or simply skimming, I might not have noticed the misspelling of Pinterest.

Be careful out there. We’re doing our best to ensure you have a safe, fun, and serendipitous experience. If you ever find anything like this, please shoot an email to Tech @ SpinPicks . com and we’ll be sure to add it to our filters.

In the meantime, spin on!

Instagram has been a hugely popular iOS app since 2010 and I admit to being a little envious of my iPhone toting pals. Well some of you do go a little crazy with the filters, but that could have just be envy talking. After admitting that, I bet you are wondering why are we excited about Instagram finally arriving for Android?

Well, I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite categories to spin is Instagram. Now there will thousands upon thousands of new Instagram users -and yes, I’m one- uploading more eye candy for us to deliver via the SpinPicks App.

Know what’s fun, at least for me?  Log into the SpinPicks Web App and set auto-spin to go on my second monitor. It’s a chance to just sit back and bathe in the pretty. Those of you with iPads may find the web app the way to go until we are ready to release on iOS later this month.

And don’t forget we have that awesome little history bar, if you weren’t quite quick enough on the repin draw.

H/T Huffington Post

SpinPicks has had a crazy few weeks.

February 8 I sent Paul an article from Business Insider to touch base and see if he was interested in working with me on this project.

A few days later the Spinterest Web App was live and being tested by close friends.

March 4th Spinterest was released in what is now Google Play. I was in San Francisco on business, but took a side trip to Petaluma to catch an episode of TWiT and while there demonstrated the app to Leo Laporte and Eileen Rivera, both of whom seemed to like the concept. This warmed my little geek heart.

One week and over 10,000 downloads later the Spinterest App was suspended for unclear reasons. Paul and I talked it over and decided it could possibly be a trademark issue, so we rebranded and shifted our focus a bit to include even more visual platform goodness. Three days later we had completely rebranded as SpinPicks and were back in Google Play.

Last Wednesday we received a notification from Google stating that after “further review” the Spinterest App was no longer suspended. Well that’s nice, but we’re now SpinPicks, Inc and it’s a bit late to go back. Cool.

“Love Rollercoaster” on the mental jukebox anyone?

We’ve gone through API rate limits, server outages, cross-country trips, incorporating, conference calls, and a whole lot of mild language.

We are blown away.

You have Tapped to Spin, Clicked to Spin,  Auto-spinned, and Shaken to Spin well over a million times and we haven’t even been in the market a full 30 days.

I know, I know, what about the iOS market? Before we get there, we’re working as fast as we can to beef up our back end (TWSS, heh). It’s a good problem to have.

Spin on!

That’s madly in the crazy, spectacular, fascinating sense, we’re not angry, not by any means.

How are we spinning madly? Or more importantly how are you?

You have clicked, tapped, or shaken to spin 878,000 times (I rounded, but by the time I finish this post, we’ll be there.)

96% of those spins have come from the Android App.

What 3 Android devices top the list?

1. Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
2. HTC Evo 4G
3. Samsung Galaxy S

I find this fascinating, I’ve got a Droid Bionic and those don’t even show up on the list until #75. Apple iPhone and iPad users beat that out and we haven’t even released our iOS app. We are working on it, I promise. Although iPad users, you may find the web app works quite well.

We have Spinners on every continent except Antarctica, but I suppose that 4g coverage is hard to find down there. They’re still on Edge.

I look at the world map of visitors and I’m blown away, countries I only vaguely remember from Geography show visits, hello Belarus, Latvia, and Estonia! I hope Google Translate is writing something close to what I’m actually saying.

Of course most of our Spinners are from the US and UK representing right around 93% of spins.

Surprisingly, Chicago is our number one US city beating out San Francisco and Dallas with Atlanta and Charlotte representing the South sneaking in at #8 and #10 respectively.

Side note to my fellow Charlestonians, “Ahem. Where are you?”

Most of you are late evening Spinners with usage peaking at midnight (Eastern) and once the night owls head to bed, the early birds start picking things up around 7am but not getting into the actual groove until lunch time.

When and where do YOU spin?

During conference calls?

Waiting in line?

Sitting in the pick-up lane at your kids’ school?

While waiting for the the server (whether the computer or the food delivering kind)?

Lying in bed waiting on the sandman?

Whenever and wherever you do it, spin on!

The bad news:

Our hosting platform had a three hour server outage on Friday. Yikes!

The good news:

We’re getting ready to transition to a different (and much better) hosting platform to ensure we don’t have these problems in the future.

Paul is hanging out on the West Coast this week, okay fine, he’s actually out there for business, but I digress. In every spare moment he’s working on that iOS app and making sure the SpinPicks transition to the new host is a smooth one.

More good news:

SpinPicks is now available in the Amazon App Store and as soon as they approve the latest version, it will be available for the Kindle Fire. On Amazon we’re only offering the SpinPicks Premium version which allows SpinPicks users to email pins and follow other Pinterest users from within the app.

And finally, the best news:

Total Spins so far?

672,654

Highest number of spins in a single day?

67,971

Wow!

Spin on!

Keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, it appears SpinPicks is taking off.

Currently SpinPicks Free is #2 in Google Play for the search term “Pinterest” which is not a bad place to be.

As of this morning’s report we have nearly 3500 user installs.

On Tuesday we had the honor of having a mention on Huffington Post Tech, listing SpinPicks as one of 11 Pinterest Apps and Tools to Enhance your Pinning Experience.

On a side note:

Have you ever tried to talk with people who don’t live on the Interwebz about things that happen on the Interwebz? I was at my side job (I work in an Irish pub) and during the rush my phone started going nuts, it was Paul telling me about the mention. Naturally, I became very excited and my customers wanted to know what was going on. So I’d start by asking if they’d ever heard of  The Huffington Post, usually to be met with a blank stare. So then I’d try asking if they knew what Pinterest was, sometimes a light would go on, sometimes not. Finally, I just went with, I got big news about an internet project and they went with, “Hey if you’re excited, we’re excited.” It’s all good.

On Wednesday Daily Dot took notice of our copyright discussion from Tuesday.

Now the really exciting number:

You are spinning like crazy! The spin button has been pressed nearly 450,000x since we began testing the app.

That blows my mind.

Spin on!

Don’t worry, there will be a TL / DR at the end of this post for Amy and others.

Both Paul and I are content creators, Paul, along with others, runs The Digitel Myrtle Beach and I am founder and author of Home Ec 101. Neither one of us are fans of copyright violation, but we both appreciate that the internet is an evolving medium and sometimes new tools may cause our work to be shared in ways that we didn’t necessarily expect, but that end up increasing our reach beyond our original platform. In those cases, we believe it is all about intent.

Yesterday we were contacted by a concerned Instagram user who believed we were in violation of Instagram’s TOS by allowing the “pinning” of images from within the SpinPicks Application (both the web and Android version).

This opened up quite a conversation between Paul, myself, and the concerned Instagram user and has caused us to place a link on the app for those those who wish to Opt Out of SpinPicks.

Rather than trying to paraphrase Paul’s points, I’m going to share them here, lightly edited and reordered for clarity and flow:

SpinPicks absolutely does not make content pinnable. The content is pinnable via the medium it is delivered.

Our PinIt  button is exactly the same as the bookmarklet on the toolbar. It is literally the same code. Except using ours ensures that the proper source will most likely be pinned. I suppose that we facilitate the pin creation in some way by displaying a button, but we take special care to not decouple the image from the source.

To put it another way: our code does not create new pins (Even if we wanted to– the current Pinterest API doesn’t allow it.) To create a new pin from our code, we would have to directly upload the image to Pinterest from our servers. To actually do that would mean we have copied the images or content and also accept responsibility for having distributing it. We do not do this.

The PinIt buttons causing you concern usually creates pins to the pages that they are embedded on. Somebody abusing the Instagram API would embed images pulled from Instagram API feeds on their page and then encourage people to pin that page (presumably to get traffic from the resulting pin) which would not only copy the image to Pinterest for the pin creation, but would totally disconnect the image from the source/creator.

Our goal is to credit the original source.

We ask Instagram for a list of links (the page hosted and made publicly visible on http://instagr.am) to the Most Popular photos. If a user clicks “Pin It” on our site, we send the source page URL provided by Instagram to the “Create Pin” dialog provided by Pinterest (the same dialog from the Pinmarklet). This dialog belongs to Pinterest and it currently respects sites that do not wish to not be pinned. Aside from the “no-pin code”, the source page URL has multiple options to disallow pinning.

If the Instagram pages/content are pinnable at all it is because Instagram is allowing them to be pinned from the source pages on http://instagr.am

Instagram is fully capable of blocking pinning very easily, even without the Pinterest provided no-pin code. They have not made any effort to do so. If they chose to block their content from pinning, we’d just pull the Instagram feed from SpinPicks completely or offer other social sharing options for our users (like the Tweet and Like options Instagram provides).

To your other point: until Instagram states otherwise, we have to believe that they wouldn’t publish photos on the public Most Popular feed that they don’t have license to share in some way (remember: we do not copy photos or any data on our service). Otherwise, what would be the point in providing that particular feed at all? Or do you also believe Instagram isn’t respecting the the copyrights of its users?

I’m sorry for being verbose or overly detailed, but it’s obvious we share different perspectives and I truly believe that we aren’t doing anything outside of the API terms. We are well intentioned with no desire to infringe on the intellectual property of others and welcome the opportunity to prove that.

We only present Flickr images that have been Creative Commons licensed and we never show Pinterest Pins that have been created from Google, Yahoo, or Bing image searches.

I think providing an easy way of a photographer to ask us to not share their work is a sufficient means of addressing most of those concerns.

Okay, so now it’s time for the TL/DR:

• SpinPicks does not make content pinnable, it is delivered to our app in a pinnable format.
• SpinPicks attempts to share only images that can be properly attributed and pins the source of the image.
• SpinPicks has a simple opt out policy to allow copyright holders a means to ensure we do not display their content.

If you’re interested in becoming more involved with learning or educating others about intellectual property check out: LinkwithLove.org

We welcome civil discussion in the comments.