Over on Business2Community, Mai Overton offers up three reasons to be thankful for social media. Feels like a bit of a stretch to me, and I’m not sure how the photo of the homeless man ties in (I swiped it anyway), but it feels like less of a stretch to come up with three reasons to hate social media, to wit:

Social media is a ridiculous time suck: The other day, ZDNet reported that 10.5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook daily. There are 525,600 minutes in a year. That means the equivalent of somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 years–or 286 lifetimes, assuming an average lifespan of 70 years–are wasted on Facebook each day liking things, watching videos, sharing pictures, making snarky comments and on and on and on. Imagine 286 people spending their lifetimes trying to cure cancer. Or doing volunteer work. Or reading great novels. Or anything productive. (Like maybe helping the homeless?) Tomorrow, imagine another 286. The day after that, imagine another 286. And on and on and on.

Social media is hurting businesses: Consider the  typical small business that’s trying to make it in the digital world today. They finally get a decent website built, and now they have to figure out how to integrate Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and all the rest into their business strategy. So they buy and read books and attend presentations and call meetings to develop strategies and then test this tactic and that tactic and focus their brainpower on trying to figure out social media when, instead, they ought to be focusing on making better products or providing better customer service.

Social media is boring: I don’t want to see a photo of the creme brulee you made, I don’t care that your dog just peed on the couch and I don’t need hundreds of people reminding me that it’s Monday and that Monday sucks. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s the first day of trout season, I don’t feel like voting in whatever stupid poll or survey you’re trying to suck me into and I don’t need you to broadcast your every move via Foursquare because the degree to which I care that you’re at Trader Joe’s is incalculably infinitesimal. Just stop it.

Takeaway for marketers: I’m not saying social media should go away (I’m as guilty as anyone of having been sucked into the social media vortex). I’m simply saying it needs to be placed (and kept) in perspective.

Looking for ways to make your photos stand out better on Pinterest? Mashable points us to an infographic full of tips. (Thanks to Barbara from BP Media Relations for the heads up on this one.)

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’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.

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.