Big retailers are early adopters of Pinterest’s API

Red hot Pinterest is offering new functunality to third parties that will allow them to curate content and drive traffic to their sites, and major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Zappos are all over it.

Retail partners will be able to embed Pinterest pins directly on their sites, making it easier for users to post content to Pinterest. Users will be able to go to Zappos.com, for example, and see which shoes Pinners covet most. Retailers can use these application programming interfaces, APIs, to show popular products on their home pages or to curate content on Pinterest at any given time. The Pins are updated regularly, so people can always see what’s trending.

In the coming weeks, Pinterest will release additional API endpoints that will surface different groups of Pins on partner sites. Expect API endpoints to start cropping up on a variety of partner websites and apps. In addition to Walmart, Target and Zappos, early adopters include AllRecipes, Better Homes and Garden, BuzzFeed, Disney sites Babble and BabyZone, Elle Magazine, Mashable, ModCloth, NBC News Digital’s iVillage.com, Nestlé, Random House, Snapguide, Wayfair, Whole Foods, Zulily and on the soon-to-launch Spoonful and Tastebook.