Watch out Pinterest, there’s a new kid squirrel on the block and its name is LoveIt! Today marks the application’s public launch after several weeks of private beta tests via Klout. Since then, LoveIt’s been picking up quite a following via Twitter. I had the chance to interview LoveIt’s
Kat Garcia, who talks about how it will stack up against other social pinboards like Pinterest, what makes it so special, and most importantly— what’s the story behind the squirrel?

Interview: LoveIt

DH: Thanks for taking the time to interview with us today! We’ve been hearing a bit about LoveIt via Klout and the Twitterverse- can you tell us more about what LoveIt is?

LoveIt: Thanks for your interest in LoveIt! We’re always happy to talk to our community. We’ve been actively listening and responding to everyone who joined LoveIt during our brief Klout Perk. LoveIt is a visual curation and social sharing platform. In plain English, it’s a site for individuals and groups to discover, collect, organize and share photos they love in public OR private collections.

We’ve developed several tools that set us apart in discovery, organization and collaboration.

DH: There are a few similar sites popping up right now on the online pinboard trend- what might we be able to anticipate from LoveIt that sets it apart from the competition?

LoveIt: We’ve developed several tools that set us apart in discovery, organization and collaboration. I’ve separated them out so it’s easy to see:

· Discovery: LoveIt connects users with their friends as well as with people who share similar visual tastes. LoveIt also helps users discover influencers, brands, websites, RSS feeds and blogs that have content related to what the user loves. LoveIt takes things one step further by showing users the original content source and allowing them to directly follow that source with a single click. The company’s patent-pending image recommendation engine consistently identifies and shares new compelling images to provide a more engaging and dynamic user experience.

· Easy Organization: Users can set up private collections, public collections and favorites to easily find images they like. The order of collections can be easily rearranged and images can be reorganized between collections by using convenient and intuitive drag-and-drop tools.

· Collaboration: Users can interact with other people in the LoveIt community to create a variety of collections from chic fashion to quirky art, tasty recipes to dream vacations, geeky gadgets to hot cars and anything else they choose. The private collection feature also makes it easy for multiple people to collaborate on professional work projects or for groups to plan special personal events.

DH: Speaking of points of difference, one immediate thing we noticed was the logo. Being in the creative industry, we can definitely appreciate good branding and marketing tactics— what’s the story behind the squirrel?

LoveIt: LoveIt is all about discovering, collecting, organizing, collaborating on and sharing all of the things you love. We thought a squirrel embodied that perfectly. They run around, love collecting acorns, finding places to put everything they collect, and if you see one squirrel another one is bound to be nearby.

DH: Something appealing about LoveIt is that it’s currently very consumer driven in its beta- understandably, you want to leave the door open to carve out a space for brand boards as well- how do you forsee brand interaction evolving via LoveIt?

LoveIt: Our Co-Founders did some informal research and discovered that people really do like interacting with brands, especially the brands that are becoming more human and engaging. We are actively listening to our community and although we have a product roadmap in place, we’re keeping it flexible so we can quickly innovate and build the most in-demand features that they want to use. We will let our community tell us how they want (or don’t want) to interact with brands and we’ll build the tools that make the most sense.

We will let our community tell us how they want (or don’t want)

DH: One of the interesting things about the upcoming launch is the amount of user-testing and publicity LoveIt’s been gaining through sites like KLOUT and Twitter- it seems like users are being given the opportunity to deliver large amounts of input and feedback, which we think is brilliant- what kind of reactions have you been receiving through beta so far and how is it shaping LoveIt’s development?

LoveIt: Thanks! We’ve heard and have been responding to the good, the bad and the ugly. Many times we’ve been able to turn neutral (and even some of the negatives) into positives simply by direct engagement and talking to them. With this direct communication, we’re asking our community what they’d like to see us build which will affect the order of priorities for us here so we can create the best user experience possible.

DH: Where does the team at LoveIt see the future of Social interest boards heading?

LoveIt: This is the beginning of the next evolution of social discovery and HOW people search online via images rather than simple text searching.

DH: Finally, does the LoveIt Squirrel have a name?

LoveIt: Inquiring minds want to know! We’ve had some really fun conversations about it in the office and will officially “introduce”the squirrel soon.

DH: Thanks again, LoveIt, for taking the time to answer, and congratulations on the official launch!
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