Today I turn 25.

Last year I compiled a list of things I learned over each year I’d been alive. If I did that this year you could have a book. The things I’ve learned during my 25th year are beyond a post’s capabilities. So instead I present you with my manifesto. My mission statement. A compilation of the things I’ve learned that I want to live by.

Experience stillness every day. Take a loud, deep breath and feel utter silence and pleasure with your own company. Make time to be alone. You can’t hear yourself think or make your own decisions if you’re constantly listening to other people’s. (Plus, you’re sort of fun to hang out with.)

Have a coffee, eat chocolate when the craving hits and drink wine without stressing about the size your ass.

Be receptive. Don’t cross your arms, don’t get defensive, don’t argue. You don’t have to take every piece of advice you receive, but if your ego is too big you don’t give yourself room to grow. That said, trust yourself enough to know what’s best for you and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. You can be receptive without being a doormat.

Travel the world. See everything you can possibly see and make friends there. Experience the people and the sights and the food and culture and make the whole wide world filled with many of your homes.

Say yes to everything at least once. Then, if you don’t like it, feel 100% okay with saying “no” for the second go-round.

Don’t give a shit if people like your taste in music/books/movies. People only judge because they have a copy of Twilight stashed away somewhere.

Stop spending time with people who don’t help you grow, laugh and smile, while making you feel supported, cherished, inspired and respected. Everyone else – while I’m sure they’re lovely – are a waste of your time.

Live boldly.

One of my best friends ever, Thana, launched her first Kickstarter campaign last week. She’s one rockin’ songstress and I’ve heard this girl sing her little heart out since she was ten years old. And now? She’s about to record her first album.

Today, she reached 50% of her funding goal. And I want to help get her the rest of the way there.

Not only would her record be a great gift to the world (I’ve already heard one of her songs, Ghost Hawk, which was written for her late brother, Niki), but she’s compiled some of the most creative, generous gifts for her backers. She’s offering up everything from a private concert to drum lessons with the great Antonio Sanchez. It’s one of the best Kickstarter campaigns I’ve ever seen and it’s clear she’s put her heart and soul into the project.

So do the world a favor! Give a little love to Thana here on Kickstarter. Both she and I would be enormously grateful.

It’s hard for me to write when I’m not annoyed by something. When I look over the past three years of blogging, I write when I’m stressed, angry, frustrated or just need to vent. The gaps in my posting? When I’m almost deliriously happy.

I know. First world problems, right?

Well, first things first. (And… warning… it’s about to get real up in here.)

The past 6 months of my life in Auckland have been some of the hardest, heartbreaking, challenging and fun months of my life. And just in the past 30 days I’ve made one of the biggest decisions of my life.

Rewind.

Since February, my dad came to visit. All the way from the great US of A.

With him, I saw the most beautiful place on earth, Milford Sound.

I hiked over 19km during the Tongariro Crossing. I did it with 80 couchsurfers.

I recently went away again with said couchsurfers to the Coromandel for Easter weekend and saw more of this beautiful country while eating homemade Indian food, seeing Cathedral Cove at night and doing a lot of spooning.

I also lost my – Mom, don’t read this – motorcycle virginity. Thanks Dr Sumit! (See Mom? He’s a Doctor. I was safe.)

I also took the plunge and am now officially a redhead.

And… here’s the big news… I began a 5 month, 200+ hour yoga teacher training program.

(p.s. I’m totally doing this pose all wrong. Don’t judge.)

Yup. Me. A teacher.

I started last week and have since met some of the coolest, most genuine people on earth. I fell so in love that I’m hesitant to write specifics about this journey as the second you mention meditation or yoga or spiritual paths you get blank looks from people. This is the first thing I’ve done in my life where I just don’t give a shit what you think. And this is the first time I don’t really want to talk and just keep it all to myself. At least for now.

Needless to say, it’s already the best decision I’ve ever made. And, come September, mama’s gonna be a registered yoga teacher. [Insert girly squeal here.]

I’m exhausted just reading this. And exhilarated.

What plunges have you taken lately?

February and March have been The Time of the Half-Finished Novel. I’m getting increasingly frustrated with books that can’t hold my attention. I can’t stand when people  recommend books and preface it by saying, “Give it 100 pages, you’ll get into it.” Isn’t the point of a story to simply be into it? Why does it need to be such an effort? Why are so many authors incapable of starting off strong?

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram was recommended by my dear friend Matt. It’s not the kind of book I usually read, but that’s the best kind, right?

I didn’t finish it. (It is 1,000 pages though, so cut me a little slack.)

The story did, however, make me desperately want to go to India. Hard. Like, it made me think about India every hour of every day for the two weeks I struggled through it.

Shantaram is the very long-winded story of a convict who escapes to India and has adventures. However, the main character, in conversation would say things like, “We used to wake with plaster on our faces from the pregnant ceiling…” I mean, really? DOES ANYONE IN THE REAL WORLD TALK LIKE THIS?! The absurdness of the dialogue brought me out of the story 60% of the time… every time.

Around page 150 the author writes, “I was thinking about another kind of river, one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world.”

That’s when I put it down. There’s only so much cheese one girl can take. My motto is, if I roll my eyes every chapter, my time could be better spent elsewhere.

The Language of Flowers by  Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Depressing, but held my attention. (Right now, that’s worth heaps of brownie points.) I couldn’t wait to read this on the bus in the morning.

It’s the story of a girl who grows up in foster care and becomes almost obsessive about the meaning of flowers. The book revolves around both her upbringing and her present-day reintroduction into the real world. Homelessness, weird family drama, abandonment, unhealthy attitudes towards sex – this book has it all if you want to hate the world. I wasn’t a major fan of the main character, but the story was well told and I’m glad I read it.

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The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

You know, I’m sitting here trying to remember the plot of The Kitchen House and whether I loved/hated it and I’m at a loss. That can’t be a good sign.

In a nutshell: White girl, orphan, slaves in the South, racism, etc etc. I remember liking it at the time, but let’s just say it’s not the kind of story that sticks with you.

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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I am so, so glad I read this (I was expecting to hate it). The story of a kid with Aspergers (I think), Extremely Loud is a story based on the time after his father’s death in 9/11. I couldn’t finish it fast enough.

I have to note, however, that I highlighted more parts I hated than parts I loved. There were a lot of inconsistencies that just seemed like Foer was adding quirky plot lines without actually thinking about how they fit into the story. There were whole sections that didn’t make any sense and paragraphs that exhausted me. One of my notes, halfway through the book, says, “I REALLY HATE COMING TO THESE SECTIONS.” Another note: “I have no idea what just happened in this chapter.”

But, then again, I highlighted more phrases I loved than anything I’ve ever read. The author’s points were so often beautiful without being cheesy and over-the-top. I want to share lines with you like, “I’ll wear heavy boots for the rest of my life.” Or, “Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.” But out of context these words that meant so much to me seem hollow.

I can understand if you’ve read and hated this book. If you haven’t read it yet, I really urge you to give it a go. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m reading The Historian at the moment and am really slogging through it. I like the story – in theory – but why is it taking the author so long to get to said story? There are bits of awesome interspersed with really long, tedious bits of over-telling.

And – sadness upon sadness – I tried rereading one of my favorite books of all time, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I couldn’t finish that either. I forgot how methodical the whole thing is. It’s chapter after chapter of facts and plot points with no emotion whatsoever. I remember being obsessed with this book as a child. What happened? Note to self: Stop trying to reread your childhood favorites.

Learning What I Love and Hate

Writing about the books I read every month has been strangely good for me. I plow through books so fast, it’s been nice to reflect on what I’ve read, what I’ve loved and what I’ve hated.

I’ve found that I love slightly quirky books. Lots of perspectives and to-the-point writing.

I hate flowery prose. I hate the word prose. Why say “her shining emerald eyes” when you can just say “green eyes”? And why are we talking about her eyes anyway?

Why turn everything into a metaphor when we perfectly understand what you mean without them? I’m of the school of thought that you “show, don’t tell”. And as I get older, I’m getting grouchier and grouchier about books that overcomplicated and over-share. I’m all for gorgeous imagery and meaningful phrases, but their overuse is a sign of a bad and incompetent writer trying to make up for a lack of real skill.

What have you read this month?

I was a little late jumping on the Kony bandwagon. Mostly because a 30-minute YouTube video is my idea of torture, but also because, even if you make your living attempting to understand and abuse social media, it’s surprisingly easy to let things fall through the cracks.

When I finally did sit down to watch the video, I felt a little bit of everything: inspired, judgmental, exhausted, motivated and skeptical.

In case you, like me, live under a rock, “KONY 2012 is an international campaign by Invisible Children, aiming to bring Joseph Kony to justice.”

(Joseph Kony is the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and is riling everyone up for his abduction of children to turn them into child soldier and sex slaves.)

The director of the KONY 2012 film, Jason Russell, managed to get 83 million video views (and counting – when I watched on Friday it was at 79 million views).

The purpose of his movie was to get as many people talking about Kony as possible. That one of the biggest problems was that no one knew or cared about the man.

Russell – clearly – succeeded. What he’s done has been nothing short of incredible. While I’m still in shock that so many people sat through a half-hour YouTube video, Russell’s efforts to get as many people sharing the video as possible paid off.

If you go to the KONY 2012 website, he’s made it as easy as possible to share everything about the campaign. My personal favorite part is his attempts to get us contacting “culturemakers” and “policymakers”.

This post isn’t about the campaign though. It’s about controlling social media. Something I think Russell and Invisible Children has done an extraordinary job of doing. By creating a powerful video that was shared by celebrities and everyday folks alike, the KONY video is the most viral video of all time and has been trending on Twitter for well over a week.

On April 20th, the video tells us, we’re supposed to paper the world with images of Kony, further spreading the knowledge of this man’s atrocities.

I’m waiting with bated breath to see if it happens the way the video presents – young and old alike spending the darkest hours of the night covering cities with posters, banners and messages. I can’t lie. It’s a hugely powerful idea – that a video, powered by social media, can incite real-world action. It makes my heart tingle.

Here’s where it gets interesting though… as powerful as this whole idea is, I fear Russell is now getting more than he bargained for.

Just the other day, Russell was arrested for public masturbation.

And thus, #horny2012 was born.

It’s sad. And also a little bit hilarious. Don’t judge me.

Point being, as much as I admire Russell for taking social media by the reigns, I very strongly believe you CANNOT control social. You can nudge something into going viral. You can make a difference. But once it’s gone viral, it’s actually gone. It’s out of your hands.

A Message from Ryan Gosling

For those of you not in New Zealand, this next story is going to seem really, really weird. And yes, I live in a very odd (but enormously endearing) country.

Last week, an Auckland store tweeted that Ryan Gosling (*le sigh*) had just been in their shop.

Now, no one comes to New Zealand. We’ll occasionally get a celebrity here on location or a musician on tour. And when they do come, it’s a big.freaking.deal. The country goes ape-shit. Everyone wants to know what said celebrity thinks about New Zealand. Even Kiwi celebrities – people who have become famous outside of New Zealand like Flight of the Concords, rarely come back and when THEY do it’s like a national freaking holiday.

Point being, Auckland went crazy. One mistaken sighting resulted in #NZGoslingHunt trending across the entire country. People tweeted photos with Gosling superimposed into images of the city. I also read some of the funniest tweets of my life on the fake-locations of the super-sexy-superstar.

It also brought into my life my new favorite blog, Hey Girl, I Love New Zealand, which is a collection of “Hey girl” pictures targeted at weird Kiwi-isms that only 4 million Kiwis (and the people who love them) actually understand. Because, well, why the hell not?

What does this have to do with a Ugandan child-abductor? The fact that nothing and no one can control what ends up going crazy on the Twitters. One simple tweet about Ryan Gosling and for days Auckland women had their panties in actual braids. Not because anyone here necessarily believed he was in Auckland (like I said – no one comes to Auckland), but because everyone wants to be a part of the trend.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a gorgeous, blond, celebrity who looks like Jesus with his shirt off or a Ugandan war lord. Twitter doesn’t give a crap

While every blogger worth his or her salt is grateful for their readers every damn day (it’s what makes the blogging world go round), there are a handful of questions you get asked so often that you get suddenly and dangerously stabby. Questions that give you the burning and all-encompassing desire to break the internet.

These are those questions.

Please. Don’t be that person.

I think your readers would be interested in…

No, I don’t think they would be interested in that infographic you made in Microsoft Paint about the top 10 online universities in Northern Iowa.

Have you ever written a post about…?

It’s called a search box. Learn how to use it.

Can you please write me a 12 page email about how exactly you started your blog, got readers and give me a step-by-step plan to get people reading my blog? I’m going to read it, not respond or say thank you and then make sure to never take your advice.

If I had a fucking nickle for the number of emails I get that include some version of this I could yacht my way to Fiji. If I had another nickle for every time I responded anyway, expecting some sort of different outcome, well, the movie Titanic might never have been made

You should change your blog header/tagline/URL/posting frequency/Twitter handle/name/social security number. I don’t like it because x, y and z reason that has everything to do with one personal experience I had that applies to every single one of your readers.

You should try running a blog that pleases everyone. And no, I’ve never heard that specific piece of advice before. Thanks for the hugely insightful brilliance that comes out of your digital mouth.

I have a blog too! It’s about my cat. We should link to each other!

No. No we shouldn’t.

Hey, you blog! I read this article on Mashable I figured you’d never read before and thought you’d like it. I don’t know if you know this, but RSS feeds are the next big thing.

Honest question: Do you think people who send really, really, really obvious links through on a regular basis are trying to help or show off that they know what Mashable is?

This is a guest post from Emma Cunningham, who knows how much I love a good social media success story. Read below for the ins and outs of how she landed not one, but two great roles using online networking. Booyah!

I knew I wanted to work in digital publishing within days of starting my post-grad certificate in publishing. I love the rapid pace, the constant feel of “shiny and new”, and the small-world atmosphere.

My goal was a job at romance publisher Harlequin, so I followed their Twitter feed, as well as the personal feeds of some of their digital employees. I did a little freelance work for them. After graduation, I chatted up the assistant manager of digital content and social media, Amy Wilkins. Our coffee date was supposed to be a chance for me to pick her brain, but it turned into a recommendation for a six-month contract as a Production Coordinator on their digital content team.

Around the five-month mark, my contract was renewed for another seven months. Shortly after the extension offer, I got pregnant. I knew I wanted to stay home with my baby until she starts school, so I planned on seeking out freelance work once I finished my year of maternity leave.

I decided to ask for LinkedIn recommendations before my last day to make sure people had my work fresh in their minds. A lot of people use LinkedIn to post their resumes, but many are nervous about asking for recommendations. They don’t want to impose on their colleagues or call in favours. I can tell you, though, from personal experience, that making that request was one of the smartest career moves I’ve ever made.

Within moments of asking Croco Designs’ Creative Director Frauke Spanuth – who does cover art for some of Harlequin’s digital imprints and websites for several of their authors – she wrote back asking if I wanted a remote position with flexible hours as the Content and Social Media Manager at Croco Designs.

Frauke was looking for a native English speaker who was familiar with the romance and genre fiction markets, and had digital PR experience. She’d communicated with me enough via e-mail to have a sense that I could be a good fit personality-wise, and she’d seen my various social media platforms which gave her an idea of my areas of expertise and skillset.

“I didn’t even have to think about my job hunt”

I didn’t even have to think about going on a job hunt. The offer came months before I even went on maternity leave. All it took was a strong online presence and the guts to ask for that LinkedIn referral. Now I work with authors to keep the copy on their websites fresh, entertaining, and search-engine friendly. I also help them build up their Twitter, Facebook and blogging skills. Best of all, I get to work with NYT bestselling authors, fresh new debut authors, and everyone in between—all from my laptop in the living room. Getting a job this perfect was almost too easy.

Networking has always been the best way to score your dream job. All that’s changed is that it’s now a hundred times easier to schmooze with your future boss.

Emma Cunningham is an ebook geek, digital marketer and publicist, and avid reader. She currently acts as the Content & Social Media Manager for Croco Designs, helping authors develop their online content for maximum impact. Her blog helps authors navigate the complex worlds of publishing and platforms.

Note from Marian: Do you have a cool story about how social media saved your bacon? Shoot me an email by clicking here and tell me all about it. I’d love to feature you on the blog.

Okay. Whew! That was interesting.

Let’s just jump right into it, shall we?

First, this happened: I wrote a post about Stephen Fry and the broadband issues in New Zealand.

Then, this happened: Stephen Fry saw the post, READ IT (God bless that beautiful man) and retweeted it out to his followers. (Then had the gentlemenly quality to thank me.)

Because of that, this happened:

Yes. You read that correctly. That would be over 70,000 clicks in 24 hours.

But because that happened, this happened:

Gotta love, Bluehost, huh?

I almost started hyperventilating. Every blogger dreams of getting their writing found – to have something go at least a little viral. Well, not only did things NOT go as planned (hellllo Database Error!) but I had no idea this would be the post that finally “made it”. I wrote it on a whim at midnight because I was so infuriated by New Zealand’s reaction to Fry’s tweets about our broadband. It wasn’t – how shall we say – the nicest, most non-stereotypically American post I’ve ever written.

Thankfully, reader response was surprisingly positive. I was impressed at the lack of trolls and angry Kiwis. It was pretty awesome seeing so many people agree with what I thought was a privileged-American-girl (or British celebrity) problem.

An since most of you regular readers are also bloggers, I thought I’d take you through a tour of this blog’s undercarriage so you can see exactly what goes down when something so stunning happens.

Exactly What Happens When an Actor with 4 Million Twitter Followers Shares Your Post

Number one: Clicks. Obviously. Lots of them. As of right now there are 295 retweets and counting. The majority of clicks obviously came from Fry’s 4 million followers, and this totaled to around 70,000 clicks on the first day.

Number two: Traffic. Unfortunately, my site crashed (or, as the internets like to call it, my site got “Fryed”). My host was in no way prepared for the influx of traffic and my site continues to have issues and keeps crashing on me. On the first day I received 13,238 visitors. The second day, 15,497. See below for a screenshot of my Analytics. The 300-700 views per day I was getting before? Insignificant compared to what Fry did in seconds.

Number three: Revenue. (Sort of.) I made a whopping $18.06 from Adsense during the past two days. For someone who averages out around $0.20 on a good day, $18 is pretty damn impressive. Now what shall I spend it on…?

Number four: Subscribers. Even with tens of thousands of new visitors, my subscribers only went up by 31. Because people tend to subscribe only when they’ve been to a blog a few times, I’m not hugely surprised, but it’s definitely an interesting non-development.

Number five: Twitter followers. I received 127 new followers in the past two days. It usually takes about 1-2 weeks for me to accumulate that much “organically”.

Number six: Klout. My score went up by eleven points after Fry shared the post.

What They Don’t Tell You

It’s been pretty cool to see all my traffic and stats go up. HOWEVER. The bounce rate on my site is now beyond high. time spent has decreased by over a minute so it’s now it’s at an average (average!) of 30 seconds. Clearly I’m not immediately impressing people with my charm and dashing good looks.

Basically, it was a nice bump in traffic that’s done wonders for my ego, but the lesson here is that just because you get mentioned by an “a-lister” (or Stephen-fucking-Fry in this case) doesn’t mean it will help your site long term.

There’s no real moral to this story other than: here’s a look into what really happens when someone awesome links to you. Pretty interesting, huh?

p.s. Mr Stephen Fry, you’re my new hero. A hat tip to you, kind sir.

Ever since arriving in New Zealand I’ve been developing this chip on my shoulder about the internet. When I first arrived I had been freelancing, which meant spending a lot of time out of the house working at coffee shops and libraries.

Not in New Zealand.

I quickly discovered coffee shops here don’t have free wifi, but the general internet is total crap. Not only slow, but expensive. And dysfunctional anywhere outside cities. And, oh, wait, LIMITED.

What is limited internet?

At the risk of sounding like a first-world whiner (which, let’s face it, the majority of this post is going to be just that), I had no idea what limited broadband meant until moving here.

Essentially it means you can only pay for and use a certain amount of data. Activities like checking email don’t eat much. Updating software, using Skype, watching YouTube videos, uploading photos…. those do.

In New Zealand, that data costs a lot. For $200/month living with five people we received 20GB of data each. In New York, my roommate and I paid $22 total for unlimited internet. You do the math.

Broadband Issues Bad for New Zealand’s Economy

I’m currently working for a start-up in a young industry. I meet a lot of professionals and entrepreneurs who are invested in New Zealand’s growth as part of the global economy. Over the past year I’ve been to many conferences on that very topic – a major event at the University of Auckland Business School, a digital conference run by MSN, a program hosted by Google…

Want to know what all these events had in common?

None of them had wifi.

Someone please explain how you can attend a conference for digital professionals about the growth of New Zealand’s international economy AND NOT HAVE THE FUCKING INTERNET.

But wait! It gets better…

Enter: Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry, master of all that is humorous and national treasure of England, is in New Zealand. And I was giddy with joy when my 15-month-long annoyances were justified when I saw this tweet:

The full story is, apparently, Fry was doing lots of “high-bandwidth activities” like uploading photos/videos. He went over the limit and Telecom slowed his speed to dial-up, which is what happens here if you exceed your limit.

(As someone who does this every month, I can assure you it’s quite the treat.)

What shocked me though were the tweets following Fry’s rant. New Zealanders are a defensive bunch and even if everyone here hates the limits, there was no way in hell they would allow an outsider to insult their country.

One guy tweeted that, well, “maybe internet is slow here but at least it stops people from tweeting too much” (!). Another called Fry an asshole. And, of course, many brought out The Earthquake Card, saying Kiwis who have internet “should be thankful for what they have.”

NZ publications and even the damn government is responding to this issue all wrong. They’re responding as if Fry has had an out-of-the-ordinary experience. I can assure you, he hasn’t. Fry’s issue is representative of a bigger problem in New Zealand.

Dear NZ, You’re 10 Years Behind. Again.

Fry later posted a series of tweets that have made me fall in love with him even more. He said (edited for clarity), “Comcast-style throttling is disastrous for the economy. For visitors and for everyone. It won’t stop illegal torrenting and makes as much sense as closing a lane of traffic because there’s congestion. Yes, Kiwi Land is remote, but if Avatar can be made here and they want to keep its reputation for being the loveable, easy-going, outdoorsy yet tech savvy place it is, then pressure @telecomNZ into offering better packages. Kiwis travel. They know 20MB is routine in Europe and the UK is rolling out ultra fast fibre-optic. Come on, New Zealand, you’re world champions at rugby and film-making. Pressure the providers to stop being a digital embarrassment.”

This has nothing to do with Fry going over the data cap. Or choosing the wrong provider. There is no other provider. There are no real competitors to Telecom. It’s called a monopoly. And it’s not okay.

And, to clarify, most first world countries don’t have data caps. As per usual, New Zealand is about ten years behind. In the words of one commenter, its policies are “primitive.” One traveler even said that as much as he loved it here, the broadband limitations means he “could never work or live here permanently.”

So BRAVO, Stephen Fry. B-R-A-V-O.

You know that obnoxious habit when you mention something new to a friend and they respond with “yeah, I heard about that ages ago” and you want to punch them in the mouth for being such a know-it-all? Well, everyone who’s been using Pinterest is starting to feel that way (re: we are the annoying know-it-all) now all the big marketing blogs are talking about it like they’ve discovered the Americas. (p.s. I’m not going to explain what Pinterest is. Go here if you want the details.)

Even though I work in marketing, I’m getting increasing frustrated at the industry’s new perspective of Pintrest…

• Like this article that tells us “everything we need to know” but only actually tells us how to pimp your content to increase traffic.
• Or this TechCrunch post that says Pinterest hasn’t yet reached its full potential because the audience is mostly women. (I wish I were kidding.)

And I’m not the only one. Pinterest lovers are annoyed because they’re all addicts. We’re all addicts. And I’m getting increasingly worried about sponsored pins, spam and generic crap being regurgitated into the webisphere.

That said, a) there’s nothing you nor I can do about it and b) there is opportunity because Pintrest is the best thing to happen to the internet since The Evolution of Dance. So I’m hoping with this post I can help the world use Pintrest for good instead of evil.

Here are some examples of companies on Pinterest, including what they do perfectly and who could use some work:

Modcloth

If Modcloth were a woman these boards would be everything she’d pin, making it as personal and personable as possible. It’s easily the best example of a brand on Pinterest.

Favorite Board: Behind the Stylebooks

Everyone loves a little behind-the-scenes, but Modcloth stands apart by showing what inspired their stylebooks, including typography, copy and vintage advertisements.

HGTV

A SparkNotes version of their website with awesome projects, design and food inspiration. While I’d usually consider this much HGTV content spammy, skimming through their projects in Pinterest-format is easier to digest.

Favorite Board: Mint Green: Color of the Month

This board gives you design ideas they might never have thought of under the umbrella of creative color.

The Travel Channel

What’s more inspirational than travel photos? The Travel Channel have organized their boards into different locations, with a few behind-the-scenes from their shows.

Favorite Board: Travel Finds

Travel Finds is a mash-up of inspirational travel quotes and nifty gadgets. It’s not too refined or particularly extensive, but that’s what I like about it.

Serious Eats

While the Serious Eats account is filled with gorgeous photos and dish ideas, they could do an even better job if they created other food-related boards like kitchen gadgets, restaurants, reviews and products they love.

Favorite Board: Booze-free drinks

Serious Eats organizes their boards  just like a cookbook! They have boards like Pasta and Noodles, Mexican, and Cocktails, as well as boards for events like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s.

Kikki.k

Again, too product heavy, but stationery company Kikki.k does a decent job showing products in action. Their board featuring gorgeous workspaces makes me want to run right out and buy all their products. Nicely played, Kikki.k. Mission accomplished.

Favorite Board: Journal Prompts

Based off Kikki.k’s popular journals, this board features writing prompts. I love the concept, but the photos aren’t sexy enough to get much traction. If they really wanted to get some attention, they should use a kick ass graphic designer to mock up the prompts with some simple and unique typography.

So how do you use Pinterest without ruining it for those who adore it?

First of all, don’t jump on the bandwagon just because Mashable tells you to.

The one thing keeping me sane about the Pinterest explosion is that if you start spamming people or your content isn’t pretty enough, you’ll never getting your stuff repinned. Meaning right now (for now) its hard to game the system.

So since the site is mostly used for inspiration, if you have a blog about blogging you might be shit out luck. While I might create a board for my travels or the books I’ve read just to test it out, if you ever catch me trying to pimp my content you have my full permission to take me out back and shoot me.

What do you think, are your panties in a knot over brands finally discovering Pinterest? Have you ever even heard of it before? Could you care less?