Pinterest’s First API Is Here: A Widget for Popular Pins

Pinterest works on its own timetable. The startup raises gobs of funding whenever it feels like it. And it waits to release APIs until it darn well pleases — even after developers have been asking for years to get tools to better harness the referral traffic they get from people saving their stuff on Pinterest.

Pinterest said today that its first API will help stores and brands display which of their items were most frequently and recently pinned. So, basically, it’s a most-popular widget that Pinterest promises will help sites keep freshly updated.

Next, Pinterest said, it will give sites more ways to mash up their data, like most-recent and related pins, and adding information about which items and keywords are trending on Pinterest into their search engines.

Pinterest has already made the most-popular API available to a bunch of sites: AllRecipes, Better Homes & Gardens, BuzzFeed, Disney sites Babble and BabyZone, Elle Magazine, Mashable, ModCloth, NBC News Digital’s iVillage, Nestle, Random House, Snapguide, Spoonful, Target, Taste Book, Walmart, Wayfair, Whole Foods, Zappos and Zulily.