Pinterest - why do I have to go through Facebook?

[xanthum]

I went onto the Pinterest site and registered to go on waiting list. Next day I receive an e-mail inviting me to join and asking to me to click on link in the e-mail. It then takes me to a page where I have to choose which networking site to go through.

Does this mean that I have to go through a networking site? I don't really understand this - can someone please explain!

Also, I have seen several threads on here asking for someone to invite them to Pinterest but I just went on and registered myself.

Am I missing something here? I would be very grateful if someone could give me the full low down on this as I'm not sure what to do.

Many thanks.

I couldn't find a way to register without facebook or Twitter so I registered with Twitter as I saw it as the lesser of two evils . . .

don't intend to use Twitter too.

it is very annoying that you have to sign up though

You DON'T - you can turn both these options off somewhere (you'll have to google). I did, but not before it had lifted a profile photo from FB

I LOATHE all this interconnectedness. I rarely use my real name for any of these things so how farking dare they link it to FB?

You have to (as far as I could see) register with facebook/twitter and it then publishes your full name & a picture of you (profile pic). I was horrified so went poking around the user settings and you can opt out of facebook once you have registered AND change your user name so it's not your full facebook name. I'm sure you can also change the profile picture but I was less fussed about that.

PS - after that you just log in with email & password like a normal site.

I definitely did not register initially using FB or Twitter, but I forget what I did now.

I'm not registered with either facebook or twitter. I'm pretty sure I just signed up with my email address.

Reading around it looks like you maybe do need facebook/twitter now although that never used to be the case. You can unlink once you've signed up I think but it seems you need an account to start a Pinterest account.

This is why I never followed up my registration with it, I don't want it linked with either.

I registered via Facebook as it is no big deal for me but you can also register via Google if you have a Gmail account and Yahoo. There are other options to FB and Twitter. You could set up a dedicated email address just for Pinterest on Gmail which is a faff but it would stop all the interconnectedness if you don't want that.

Thanks so much everyone for the info. Can't believe that it has to be so difficult and don't get why it is linked to Facebook. I am going to have a good think on this one as I'm not sure I want all this interconnectedness as you say.

Why is everything so complicated? (mutter mutter).