Dive Brief:

• Digital bookmarking website Pinterest has a six-year, $750 million commitment to Amazon Web Services, for computing, storage and data transfer services, according to a company filing last week.
• The social "pinning" platform negotiated the contract with AWS to lessen the burden of its growing platform and therefore rising cloud costs. Pinterest inked the deal in 2017 "in return for negotiated concessions" and is required to "maintain a substantial majority of [its] monthly usage" of cloud-related services, according to the filing.
• The remaining balance Pinterest owes AWS is $444.1 million as of December 31, 2018, which the company expects "to meet during the term of the addendum primarily through our use of AWS cloud services," according to the filing.

Dive Insight:

Pinterest began using AWS in 2010 as the website's user base grew into the millions. Now the platform has 250 million monthly users. The cloud provider ensured scalability for Pinterest and the bookmarking site leaned on AWS' services for computing, storage and data transfer services.

Pinterest is in the midst of going public, after choosing the New York Stock Exchange for its stock listings last week. The company's proposition was $100 million in a max aggregate offering, according to Seeking Alpha analysis. 

Using technology to widen the gap in differences among competitors means widening its technological capabilities. In September the company opened its content marketing API to third-party influencer marketing platforms to streamline collaboration with marketers and influencers.

It also strategically uses AI to sift through user data to cultivate the ideal personalized pinning experience. Pinterest recently added a new head of engineering. Walmart CTO Jeremy King is leaving the retailer this Friday to deepen Pinterest's computer vision integration on features like in-app shopping, advertisements and personalization.