Search

Jenna Cook returned to China at age 20 to search for her birth mother. What she found, above all else, was the collective pain of dozens of Chinese families who had given up children.

Pinterest has created a database of things that matter to humans. And with a programming team that's largely been hired away from Google, the company has begun offering what it calls "guided search."

The "graph search" feature, which will let users comb their friends' pages for everything from travel tips to restaurants they like, gives the company a path to grow its revenue but could also add to privacy concerns. Most analysts don't see the new feature as a direct threat to Google — for now.