Local Girl Makes Good

Reading all of that Seth Godin pays off. ;o)

Hooray for Houzz.com, that listens to its users!

*Update*

That discussion has disappeared from Houzz.com, so I used the fabulous Wayback Machine, and pulled it up.  The text went as follows:

Wondering why we can't pin our fave pictures on Pintrest? Not being rude here just seriously want to know, is there a legal reason?

13 replies

posted 2 days ago in Using Houzz by ldirk | last reply 31 hours ago

Email

 

 

13 replies

annalea123 says:

I'd love to know, too. Not "allowing" Pinterest links is seriously hurting Houzz. Sure, it brought me here and I now know what Houzz is . . . but there's no way I'm going to start using the service after they've fouled up my method for keeping track of my idea files. The lack of perceived goodwill is pretty glaring -- and I don't have time for two services anyway.

2 days ago

sheilaschmitz says:

Thank you for your comments, ldirk and annalea123! We love our community and truly appreciate your feedback. We are currently looking for a solution that will also address the requests from design professionals on the site to keep their photos protected.

When we started Houzz in 2009, a priority was to create a place where design professionals and others would feel comfortable and protected when sharing their work. When members share their portfolios on our site, they know we have done our best to make sure their photos are presented in the way that they have chosen.

We recently discovered that 20,000 images from Houzz had been posted to Pinterest. From there they can be copied again to other places. We certainly do not wish to spoil anyone's experience with Pinterest; we were simply fulfilling a promise we made to the designers when they gave us license to use their images on our site.

Again, we are trying to work with Pinterest to find a solution that will solve everyone's needs.

2 days ago

ldirk says:

Awesome! Thank You so much for answering my question. I wondered if it wasn't something as such. I have to sort of agree with annalea123! that it seems negative even though you are just fulfilling a promise. I hope it can be resolved because I love these two sites equally and I direct all my friends to both. I don't plan on quitting Houzz. It's an awesome site. But I will say that many others will be directed to your site via Pinterest. I have found numerous sites since joining there and it makes it simple to be redirected to the origin of the photo.
Thanks Again! And thanks for your great site. Lots of hard work and time goes in to Houzz and I really do appreciate it.

2 days ago

annalea123 says:

Hi Sheila,

I appreciate your time to answer. One thing that's important to bear in mind is that once photos are posted on the internet, control is gone. If photos are here at houzz.com, they can be downloaded, copied, pasted, ad infinitum. (There are plenty of image-capture programs out there if right-clicking is disabled in the page html.) As it is, code is offered upon right-clicking to embed the photo wherever I want, so I'm at a loss to see how disdaining Pinterest pins protects anyone.

A designer's work pinned (and repinned, going viral) on Pinterest is some of the very best free marketing ever. The social networking aspects of Pinterest make it one of the most powerful tools so far for making sure images are seen. And if you're a designer, whose work must be seen, I'm having trouble understanding how that's a bad thing.

All of the hyperventilating about limiting what amounts to fair use really is self-defeating. I'm sad that these designers don't yet grasp the importance of always gaining a wider audience. Pinterest is, quite literally, a "quotation" site, but it quotes images instead of text. Images are always linked back to their original sources, which will drive traffic both to Houzz and to the designers in general.

As the business-minded wife of a software company owner, and an active customer/consumer, I love to see companies that humble themselves and realize that without goodwill and a great reputation for generosity and friendliness, they simply won't make it. Designers fall under that same category.

There are tons of great designers out there, in innumerable fields. I'm sorry that those who post to Houzz are actively opting out of such a fast-growing and highly active marketing tool as Pinterest.

You may now return to your regularly-scheduled evening. This rant chapter of the Great American Novel is now over. ;o) Thanks for reading!

2 days ago

islandhome says:

With you annalea123 on this. Houzz's stance on this has been very disappointing particularly as these designers portfolios are online and available to pin without going through Houzz.
Enough to turn me off Houzz and stick with Pinterest.
I'm curious to know how this will affect bloggers who use images from here? After all Pinterest provides links to follow back to source whereas a blogger can easily eliminate all that information when posting an image from Houzz.

48 hours ago

angela_kuzior says:

I completely agree with annalea123-you are a very eloquent writer! Everything she mentions about images being "protectable" is correct, as I'm sure you well know.

I am a photographer myself and would be absolutely delighted if a photo of mine went viral on Pinterest since it would lead so many back to my site and/or blog. There is quite a difference between saving a photo (or what have you) on a pin board online vs. STEALING a photo for print or to claim as your own work.

I'd also like to point out that I had never even heard of your site until someone was bashing it ON Pinterest for taking away a ton of folks pins, many of whom I'm sure were the same as me and had not heard of your site before they found something they thought was beautiful pinned from it on Pinterest.

I have literally replaced a lot of the paper in my office by using Pinterest and will not frequent any site that does not allow me to pin something so I don't have to try to remember the path I took to get back to it.

I hope you will reconsider this horrible business idea and that the designers you work with understand that nothing they make available on the internet is sacred.

48 hours ago

cookles2 says:

Why would anyone post anything on the internet if they wanted to keep it private. I love you site and have spent many hours searching reading and enjoying. I am in the process of building a new house. Being able to catalog my likes on PINTEREST has been a godsend, I can easily share my likes and dislikes with my entire design team. Over 100 pins from Houzz were just deleted, all that invested time ... GONE! Business wise I can't imagine your designers and advertisers wouldn't want the exposure, I have used a few of your leads. Hope this can be resolved .... till then I can't spend the time searching your site for info that later I can't retrieve easily.

43 hours ago

houzzsupport says:

Thank you again for your feedback and ideas. We read them all and take them seriously. We have written to Pinterest to let them know they can continue to allow their users to pin photos they find on Houzz.

We value all members of the Houzz community and want your experience to be the best it can be — on Houzz as well as Pinterest. We are sure there's a solution that works for everyone and will do whatever we can to make that happen.

39 hours ago

ldirk says:

Great News!!! And Thank You Houzz.

38 hours ago

angela_kuzior says:

Awesome! Thank you.

34 hours ago

annalea123 says:

I believe one word begs appropriate use here:

Waaah-hoo! :o)

Houzz, you just earned major points in my book. Thank you!

Now, to find that email so I can repin the Houzz photos I had before . . .

34 hours ago

annalea123 says:

P.S.) Now I just need to wait for Pinterest to whitelist Houzz so their "Pin It" bookmarklet will work again. . . .

34 hours ago

islandhome says:

Well done Houzz for sorting this out and coming to the party.

31 hours ago

Quote of the Day

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.

Small Pig is back!

Finally, Arnold Lobel's Classics (he's one of my favorite children's book illustrators/authors) are back in print!  (And you can often get used library binding editions for about the same price as a new paperback.)

I'm so glad my old copy of Small Pig is now replaceable.  My children love that story.  Now, if they would just reprint Prince Bertram the Bad . . .

Quote of the Day

Courtesy of a Ravatar*

ENGLISH: A language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages, and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

Mwah-ha-hah-haaaaa . . . .



*A Raveler's avatar.

So. Random.

I have about fifty blog posts run through my head in a given day.  And time for about .374 posts/day.

I love books.  Right now I would love to tell Amazon to send me about fourteen.  My juvenile library is pathetic, and already exhausted.  But.  I currently have no library, so they would need to live in cardboard boxes until I build one.  Which will probably not be finished until about a year from now.  I think the kids and I are going to the library today.  Very, very soon.

I'm an ENFJ. Vern is an INTJ.  (Supposedly we're really ill-matched. ;o)  Luckily, knowing how our personalities differ makes it possible for us to eke out an existence together.

What are you?

Quite the Bully, eh?

Seen today in a Ravatar*:

ENGLISH: A language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages, & rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

Ravelers are the best. :o)

*A Ravelry avatar.

Tiger

The Tiger

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake 1757–1827.

On Rough Days

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

-- Robert H. Schuller

Muddy Gem

From my dear friend Birrd:

"That was in October. Life was going like a mudslide, sucking me along in a torrent of squelchy goo-filled days, accelerating as the Holidays approached. Now, I like mud and all, but come January I decided that I was going to harmonize my debris flow and tell it where to go instead of letting it push me along."

She's one of my favorite writers, you know. Just too much fun.  :o)  

Still in absentia

I know I haven't blogged much, or very well, for quite some time. I find that the blog* often reflects my state of mind and health. The better and more peaceful I feel, the higher the quality and quantity of posts.

*Isn't it interesting how usually blogs are referred to by their owners as "the blog", as if it is an entity unto itself, not wholly owned by the author? Like "the mall" or "the country". I guess, though, that without readers a blog wouldn't be nearly as much fun, so maybe a "the" is more appropriate.

I've been sitting here, reading the No Impact Man blog, and researching thyroid disorder symptoms (the dizziness and swelling lip of the last few days now make sense--hallelujah). What a way to ring in the New Year, eh?

Well, whether or not I'm particularly festive tonight is beside the point. I'm just glad to have found some information that's helpful, so that maybe I'll be back to blogging soon. Typing with swollen fingers is a chore.

Hope you all had a wonderful and festive New Year's Eve, and that the New Year brings you much health, true happiness, and loving family and friends.

What's normal?

I feel as though the common usage of the word "normal" is woefully fuzzy, with attendant social inferences that pressure and guilt people into doing things that make them unhappy. When someone says "That's not normal," all too often the response elicited (whether spoken or silent) is "There's something wrong with me."

Normal is the way things should be. Usual, on the other hand, is what happens all around us every day. Big Difference. Given a life based on generally wise decisions, it's normal to be reasonably happy, have some energy, and find joy in life. It's usual to be tired, depressed, overburdened and crabby.