We have a fresh niche social site to talk about, and its making a huge splash. Last week, we saw reports that Pinterest has hit 10 million unique monthly U.S. visits. Reports for the week of January 16, 2012 monitored the site traffic as high as 17 million unique monthly U.S. visits. It’s addicting, it’s social, and it’s driving tons of site traffic. So what is Pinterest?

What is Pinterest?

The millions of people using and visiting Pinterest everyday are there to do one of two things: users can share their favorite things, people, thoughts, or ideas from all over the web on virtual “boards”; and a person can monitor their board’s activity or “repin” from the people or brands that they follow. Thanks to a beautiful, constantly refreshing interface, each visit to Pinterest can be equally memorable as it is unique.

What does this mean for retailers?

I was still figuring out the proper pronunciation while I started to create boards dedicated to my favorite things. It’s drawing users in with its simple, yet stunning web design – all empowered with beautiful products and impactful imagery. And, most importantly, it’s the talk of the digital world. CNN and Mashable have given the online pinboard a ton of coverage and praise already. As new data continues to emerge showing who is using it and how, Pinterest has quickly developed into the latest-darling of our online world.