Your website isn’t going anywhere until you get the cloning stamp of approval. We’ve seen it happen time and time again, but I continue to be struck by how utterly unoriginal cloners are when it comes to design or branding. Behold the German, Russian and Chinese carbon copies of Pinterest, the red hot startup that just raised $27 million for its ‘self-expression engine’. Can you spot the differences between Pinterest, Pinspire.de (from master cloners the Samwer brothers), Fast Lane Ventures-backed Pinme.ru and China’s Markpic?

An honorable mention goes to Myspace – we should recognize that they were definitely the pioneering Pinterest cloner. The other are basically me-too Pinterest ripoffs.

Crunchbase

• PINTEREST

Company: Pinterest

Website: pinterest.com

Launch Date: 2008

Funding: $37.5M

Pinterest is a social networking site with a visually-pleasing “virtual pinboard” interface. Users collect photos and link to products they love, creating their own pinboards and following the pinboards of other people whom they find interesting. The site is currently invite-only, and it has experienced rapid growth in recent months.

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