Pinterest announces open registration. Invites needed no more.

The first thing that may be popping into your brain is “spam.” After all, what was the point of making Pinterest invite-only? If everybody is vouched for by an existing user, then theoretically any additional user who chooses to spam has to betray the friend who invited him/her.

Let’s just say, at some point somebody got betrayed.

And once there’s a patient zero of spamming, the sanctity of the invite-only system doesn’t exist. That happened a long time ago, at least as early as January 2012. At this point, all the invite-only system does is slow down Pinterest’s growth.

So I like the new set-up.

Twitter/Facebook sign-up still required, so it’s not totally open season for spam. Still a bit of friction.

Guess the one thing that would make me happier. Animated .gif support.

One day. #dreams