More than any other social network, Pinterest embodies aspiration. Each month, an army of 70 million users loyally pins items to more than 1 billion boards on the platform. (Today's total count on Pins: 50 billion.) In essence, people pin things to reflect an intention: They want to dress stylishly, design a cozy dorm room, or maybe make one of those crochet doll thingies.

All of which makes for a treasure trove of data essential to the company's grand ambitions to become the number one destination for discovering things, a kind of alternative search. In other words, Pinterest would say, Pinterest isn't meant for finding specific pieces of information, but rather for coming across information users might want to act on later. It's for serendipitous discovery. And if each Pin signals consumer preference, the thinking goes, then the community is chock full of people who are actively browsing for things to do—or buy.

Until recently, Pinterest didn't offer a simple way to morph those Pins into actual things in users' real-world lives. But with the company's recent announcement that it was rolling out Buyable Pins, Pinterest is finally making it scary easy for users to realize their digitally expressed aspirations in the physical world with no more than a few taps on a smartphone.

Buyable Pins are an obvious move. In her annual Internet trends report, influential Morgan Stanley analyst turned venture capitalist Mary Meeker called "Buy buttons" in mobile apps the next big thing after video. And Pinterest says they've been one of the most-requested features on the site for some time. More than any other social platform, Pinterest seems primed to buy and sell.