Pinterest, the pinboard-style social photo sharing website is now open to all.
The website that had an invite-only policy is relaxing its practices and making the site available to all.
The site that was launched in 2010 has been the fastest-growing site with 10 million users in a span of nine months.
"They're one of the main sites that serve the so-called social collectors, people who like to curate information across the web," Darika Ahrens, analyst at Forrester Research told reporters. "What remains to be seen is what happens if they start to commercialise - how they're going to do that and if they do it in a way that's not going to alienate their users."
The company has not revealed its commercial plan yet, though they have tried at various ways to make money. The exclusivity or the "invites only" factor has been a part of Pinterest's marketing strategy, said an analyst.
"This tactic of adding exclusivity upon launch of a social network is not a new thing," Rob McNair of mycleveragency.com said. "Google+ adopted [it]... creating a people-referral engine and as a result built pent-up demand from the everyday user that wanted to give it a try."
The hot topics that are trending in Pinterest are about fashion and recipes. Men are outnumbered by women on the site. It is estimated that last June there were 1.2 million visitors globally, a year later, the numbers have jumped to 31.2 million.
The company had copyright issues when users began to pin copyrighted materials. Pinterest has allowed websites to opt out of being featured on the website by adding a line of web code that blocks their content.
After Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is the third most visited social network, according to Experian Hitwise.