Articles like this one irritate me. I have no inside information about the company and its relationship with the biggest movie (so far) of 2012, but instead of being titled “How a Startup Powered Hunger Games Into A Global Social Phenomenon – A Money Machine” I’m guessing it probably should have been titled, “How a Startup Helped the Global Phenomenon Called Hunger Games Not Screw Up Their Social Media Presence.”

There’s no way that Hunger Games was going to be a social media failure. It was either going to be a huge social media success or a really huge social media success. Any implication that the huge success (minus the really) is due to anything other than the really huge success of Suzanne Collins’ three novels is balderdash.

If you happened to be watching Meet the Press this morning, you might have caught David Brooks mentioning a website, Project Implicit, that measures unconscious bias. It’s an interesting question these days, given the Trayvon Martin shooting. You can learn more about the site over here.

If you’ve been following the story of Pinterest‘s meteoric rise with more than just passing interest, you’ve probably noticed the criticism the site has received for its privacy policy.

Stories like this one from Above the Law have detailed how Pinterest “screws its users.” Sites like The Social Interest had plenty of suggestions about how Pinterest could make things better.

Pinterest has been listening. This morning they sent the following email to their users:

Updated Terms of Service

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 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 interest. We’ve gotten a lot of help from our community as we’ve crafted these Terms.

Thanks!

Ben & the Pinterest Team

Sounds good. But does it solve all the potential issues? First Post Technology thinks that maybe it doesn’t. We’ll see. Meanwhile, TechCrunch and The Next Web discuss not only the fact that the terms are updated, but address why that’s happening now: because Pinterest is preparing to develop and release APIs for third-party services and developers.

Takeaway for marketers: If you think Pinterest is growing fast now, wait till those APIs hit.

“In life, particularly in public life, psychology is more powerful than logic.”
—Ludwig Quidde

Or, for that matter, does Kred have cred?

I don’t know. I’ve been on Klout for a while now, and I see a lot that doesn’t make sense. For example, I can be active as hell on Facebook and Twitter and Google+ for three days straight and my Klout score goes down each day. Then I do nothing at all for a week and my Klout score goes up. I’ve been hanging out at 55, give or take a tenth of a point or two, for months.

Then again, maybe I just don’t understand what they’re up to over there. I guess I’m not alone. Lots of people are trying to figure out not only what they’re up to, but also how it makes sense for their business. Should businesses try to maximize their Klout score? Should a company hiring a social media manager be concerned if that person has a Klout score above or below a certain threshold? Should we be concerned about Klout scores at all?

Brian Solis (who has a Klout score of 70) has a few things to add to the conversation, and you can read all about them over on TechCruch, where you can also check out a SlideShare presentation. I’m not sure you’ll find any answers, but at least you’ll have some more information.