Skip to main content

Google+ takes on Pinterest with Collections, a new sharing feature

google might be about to take on pinterest  collections
Google+ is having a bit of an identity crisis while its Mountain View owner works out exactly what it wants to do with it. Until recently, the most significant news about the struggling social network was that its excellent Photos component was going to get spun out into a standalone project. It turns out Google+ now has a new sharing feature called Collections, and it looks a lot like Pinterest.

Updated on 05-04-2015 by Kyle Wiggers: Changed wording and added new details reflecting the official launch.

First uncovered by DroidLife tipster, the new Collections feature, described as “part Pinterest, part blogging,” enables users to create groups of photos, videos, and links and then share them with other people in their Circles.

Google+ officially began rolling out Collections today. It lets any user dedicate a Google+ page to the topic of their choosing, which others can then follow. You can check out some of Google’s favorite new Collections here. Google+ could certainly use a boost as it looks to make up ground on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and the various other social sharing apps. Although Google hasn’t shared any user numbers publicly, recent estimates suggest the network has between 4 million and 6 million active users.

Compare that to the 1.44 billion active monthly users that Facebook boasts, and you can see the problem. Still, Google is unlikely to abandon Google+ completely — It’s a useful way of giving every Gmail and YouTube user an identity on the Web, even if no one’s actually paying much attention to the stream of posts that go alongside the profiles.

A splash page indicates Collections will reach all corners of the social network in time, but users on Twitter have reported seeing a few public Collections. Now that it’s been released, it will be interesting to see whether the Pinterest-style feature brings users back to Google+.

Editors' Recommendations

David Nield
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
Reels are about to show up in yet another Facebook feature
A smartphone with the Facebook app icon on it all on a white marble background.

As its answer to TikTok, Reels is clearly a particularly important priority for Meta. Which is why a number of its platforms' recent feature updates often involve Reels. And today's announcement was not exempt from Meta's push to make Reels just as competitive as TikTok.

On Thursday, Meta announced that it would be bringing Reels to Facebook Groups, mentioning it as one of three new ways for users to "to connect over shared interests." Facebook group members and admins will be able to add "audio, text overlay and filters on top of their videos before sharing to bring their stories to life."

Read more
Instagram may be adopting this beloved MySpace feature
Instagram app on the Google Play Store on an Android smartphone.

Adding a song to a social media profile? That's not new, especially if you grew up in the MySpace generation. But it might be a new feature for Instagram as the photo and video sharing app has apparently been spotted working on a profile song feature.

According to screenshots posted by developer Alessandro Paluzzi as part of a series of tweets that began on Monday, Instagram appears to be working on a feature that could give its users the option to add a song to their IG profiles.

Read more
Is TikTok leaking drafts? Let’s take a closer look at this rumor
The TikTok app on a smartphone's screen. The smartphone is sitting on a white table.

Not every social media post is ready for prime time. Sometimes you write a post or film a video and decide that it's better to not publish it. That's fine. That's what the Drafts folder is for. That folder is built to hold your works-in-progress, mistakes, and other too-goofy-for-public-consumption posts and videos. The Drafts folder is probably one that you take for granted, but what if that folder (via a particularly viral-prone social media platform) were to have its content leaked and published for the world to see? Scary, isn't it?

That's the fear that's behind a certain, now years-long TikTok rumor going around. But is it true? Is TikTok leaking its users' drafts? In this guide, we're taking a closer look at this rumor and fact-checking it.
The rumor
As far as we can tell, the whole "TikTok leaks drafts" rumor dates back to at least the summer of 2020. It's not a rumor that really made mainstream news headlines, but it did get some coverage with lesser-known websites, and it does have a tendency to resurface repeatedly. The last time it resurfaced was in August 2022. Here's what we know about it:

Read more