Google launches a new Pinterest-like social platform called Keen

If you can’t come up with a rival product, I guess why not copy it. The internet is already littered with a host of different social media platforms, but somehow companies keep coming up with new ones or even rival ones as they try and lure those same users across to a different tool.

Google has gone and launched a new social media platform of their own as their Area 120 team, an internal incubator that creates experimental apps and services, has launched Keen: a would-be Pinterest rival that draws on the search giant’s machine learning expertise to curate topics.

The new service is already available on the web and Android with co-founder CJ Adams proclaiming that Keen aims to be an alternative to “mindlessly” browsing online feeds.

On Keen […] you say what you want to spend more time on, and then curate content from the web and people you trust to help make that happen. You make a ‘keen,’ which can be about any topic, whether it’s baking delicious bread at home, getting into birding or researching typography. Keen lets you curate the content you love, share your collection with others and find new content based on what you have saved.

If you’re just going to create another Pinterest though, it’s unlikely that people will move away from that site where they already have ana activity interest participation and following. So what does Keen do that is different? Well, according to Google, the secret is all in its machine learning capabilities:

Even if you’re not an expert on a topic, you can start curating a keen and save a few interesting ‘gems’ or links that you find helpful. These bits of content act like seeds and help keen discover more and more related content over time.

That description doesn’t really help much. An improved AI will certainly lead a person to more content they are likely to enjoy, but I’m not sure that is a hard enough sell when Pinterest is likely to have loads more content anyway and already provides a decent experience. The biggest problem with something like this is that it simply just fragments an internet user base even more and with most of these sites requiring millions of users to make money off of their advertising it just makes it more difficult for each to actually turn a profit.

Though in the case of a site like this Google will likely have a bigger reason for it where even if the site itself is not a big success, they can simply add that information to their already knowledgeable advertising algorithms and make even more money off targeting you with all the stuff they know you like. Something which Keen’s Privacy Policy does certainly allow for. There are far too many social media sites popping up and Facebook and Google seem intent on making more, as they find new ways of getting people to depart of their data and make bucketloads more money

Last Updated: June 23, 2020