Pinboard Turns Six

July 09, 2015

Today is Pinboard's sixth birthday as an online service, but of course the roots of the site go much deeper. My grandfather started Pinboard all the way back in 1931, when he was a young agronomy student in need of some way to help keep track of cuttings. What began as a simple system of shelves and apple saplings had soon expanded to encompass the books in his comfortable study.

In 1968, like so much of Polish culture, Pinboard went underground, in this case literally, as a warren of tubes and cables that could be quickly disconnected if a local political officer came snooping by. The rat's nest of hidden cabling below the floor would inspire me years later when it came time to wire up my own servers.

By 1980 Pinboard was an elaborate system of strings and pulleys cross-referencing material across five bookshelves and a greenhouse. One of my earliest memories is tugging on one of the threads and watching a cloud of white bookmarks fly out from between the onion-skin pages of a thick tome. I got a sound drubbing for it. But how we laughed!

With changing times came changing technology. Visits home turned into long evenings keying cards into a ZX Spectrum, lulled into inattention by the soft hiss of the cassette tapes that the data would save onto (or the dreaded crinkling sound that meant the tape had gotten wrapped up in a spool).

When it came time for me to take over Pinboard, I vowed to continue my grandfather's committment to Eastern European craftsmanship and traditional Polish customer service. But then I got bored and thought, "eh, just put it online and see what happens." That was six years ago today.

Here is the traditional set of statistics:

As you can see, growth in data stored has been fairly linear and the number of active users has crept up to the 25K mark. I changed the business model of the site in January from a one-time signup fee to a recurring fee, but has this affected income? It doesn't feel like it. Possibly it has. I really need to look into it.

I am a terrible businessman.

Thanks for another year entrusting me with your precious data, and giving me the genuinely pleasant feeling that comes from running a useful project. Please don't forget to make backups!

—maciej on July 09, 2015

API Outage

February 05, 2015

Pinboard servers came under DDOS attack today and the colocation facility (Datacate) has insisted on taking the affected IP addresses offline for 48 hours. In my mind, this accomplishes the goal of the denial of service attack, but I am just a simple web admin.

I've moved the main site to a secondary server and will do the same for the APi in the morning (European time) when there's less chance of me screwing it up. Until then the API will be unreachable.

—maciej on February 05, 2015

Donating to the World Food Program

December 21, 2014

I'll be donating Pinboard revenue for the remainder of the year to the World Food Program, which is providing critical food assistance to Syrian refugees. They have faced severe budget shortfalls this month:

On December 1st, the World Food Programme (W.F.P.), announced that it was suspending its operations to feed one million seven hundred thousand Syrian refugees—scattered across Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt—because it had run out of money. (The program is under the auspices of the U.N., but funded entirely by voluntary donations.) Under the program, Syrian families received the equivalent of a dollar a person each day to buy food at local shops. This operation cost sixty-four million dollars a month, and, while governments and private donors had helped to fund it throughout most of 2014, there was no longer enough money to carry on. This was “disastrous,” the Programme said in a statement.

If you've wanted a Pinboard account but prefer that your money go to a worthy cause rather than supporting my indolent lifestyle, this is the perfect opportunity. And if you have the means, please consider donating to the WFP directly.

—maciej on December 21, 2014

New Pricing Policy

December 14, 2014

Beginning January 1, 2015, there will be a change in how I charge for Pinboard.

Right now, users pay a one-time signup fee that grows by a fraction of a penny with each new signup. At the moment, this fee is $10.55. Pinboard also offers archiving accounts, which cost $25/year. Users who upgrade after joining Pinboard can deduct the signup fee from the first year of archiving.

Under the new scheme, basic Pinboard accounts will cost $11/year, while archiving will continue to cost $25/year.

My main reason for making the change is so that I don't have to keep explaining how pricing works. An astonishing number of people already believe that they're paying annually for Pinboard. Others accuse me of baiting and switching them when they upgrade to archiving and get a renewal notice. Note how much easier it is to describe the new policy than the old one.

If you already have a Pinboard account, or sign up for one before January 1, 2015, this change will not affect you.

All Your Questions Answered

Isn't this somehow unfair to someone?

No.

You said it was a one-time fee, but now you're saying I have to pay?

See paragraph #5.

How will this affect people who already have a Pinboard account?

See paragraph #5.

What if I have a regular account now, but upgrade after January 1?

See paragraph #5.

What if I sign up before the end of the month?

See paragraph #5

Will there be a way to set up recurring payments?

Yes, hopefully via both PayPal and Stripe.

Will there be a discount if I sign up for multiple years?

Very likely. I am still mathing this out.

Should I be worried?

Only in the broadest, existential sense.

What if I signed up before 2015 but still want to pay you annually?

Friendly Pinboard users who want to support the site in this way will be able to opt in to the new scheme.

—maciej on December 14, 2014

Holy War on Sites That Demand Pinboard Passwords

October 14, 2014

Over two years ago I introduced an API authentication method so people could authorize outside third-party websites to add things to their Pinboard account without sharing their Pinboard password.

Many sites switched over to use the token, but some still have not.

As of today, I'm going to start blocking outside websites that ask you for your Pinboard credentials. First to feel my wrath is Packratius, which angers me especially by asking users to provide their Pinboard password in order to duplicate a native Pinboard feature.

Do not do this

Packratius, I block you!

Next on the chopping block is IFTTT, which has set up an especially ridiculous workflow by requiring users to enter then Pinboard password, and then immediately using it to fetch an API token that they use for all subsequent calls. Their tech team has pleaded for mercy until October 24, and I have heard their pleas. But it's dumb that it is taking two years, multiple engineers, and millions of dollars in funding to begin to promise to fix this. I am itching to block them.

If you know of any other websites that ask for your Pinboard password, please let me know and I will gleefully bring the ban hammer down.

If you run a site that is asking people for their Pinboard passwords, you need to change it to ask for the API token instead. If you need time to do this, email me about your plans with a convincing display of contrition.

If there is something you are able to do with a password and unable to do with an API token, let me know and I will fix it immediately.

I have less of a problem with mobile or desktop apps that ask for Pinboard login credentials, provided those get stored locally. My beef is with sites that ask for passwords that get sent to a server somewhere. There is absolutely no need to do this this given the existence of an API token, and it needlessly puts users' accounts at risk.

Update 4:45 PM Oct 14: I just got news from IFTTT that they've changed their channel form to use the API token. Thanks very much to them for getting that done faster than promised!

—maciej on October 14, 2014

Sunsetting Delicious

August 21, 2014

Since the birth of the site, Pinboard has always offered a Delicious sync feature. You could enter your Delicious username on the settings page, and the site would periodically poll your public Delicious feed and add any new bookmarks it found.

Because Delicious appears to be in a terminal coma, and because working around bugs in their RSS feed has historically consumed a lot of development time, I am going to turn Delicious sync off effective October 1, 2014. If you want to keep hooking the services together, you will still be able to do it through an outside service like IFTTT or Zapier.

Of course you will still be able to import all your Delicious bookmarks, as well as export Pinboard bookmarks in a format that Delicious can (sometimes) read. The only thing going away is the automatic sync.

—maciej on August 21, 2014