If you’re like me, you probably created an account on Pinterest and enthusiastically loaded it with images… six months ago. But with each passing month, you’ve spent less and less of your free time pinning cool stuff.

That’s exactly what Pinterest is trying to combat according to CEO Ben Silbermann.

You could call it a sophomore slump, but it’s actually a sign of the times. And, NO, I’m not going to be one of those people who blames everything on the so-called era of “shorter attention spans.”

That’s a cop-out. I don’t have any evidence that attention spans are shorter, and frankly, I don’t care.

Because the truth is that never before has there been this much media to compete for your attention. And so many delivery devices…

“We talk a lot on the team about this pressure to earn people’s time, both every minute and every month but also every year,” Silbermann told attendees at GigaOM’s Road Map conference.

The proof of whether or not a web asset is truly valuable, as opposed to simply new and novel, is that users continue find benefit in it over time. Unfortunately, this is a very fast-moving target… The unique space that Pinterest fulfilled at the beginning of 2012 is now crowded with high level competitors… some of whom have more innovative business models.

Pinterest’s long-term success will hinge on its ability to hold a user’s interest, not just to capture it for a snap shot in time. As a source of referral traffic, Pinterest is now larger than Yahoo…

According to Compete.com, Pinterest’s unique user traffic is still ticking upward, a good sign for Pinterest. However, talking to all of the early adopters in my network — and judging from their Pinning — it seems that there are a lot of neglected accounts…

Do you think Pinterest offers enough benefits to keep users interested long-term? Are you using Pinterest more or less these days?

That’s exactly why most companies focus a ton of time and research on metrics like “lifetime value” and “repeat customers.” The old 80/20 rule — that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your most loyal customers — may not be entirely accurate for your business, but it’s still a good perspective.

It’s absolutely critical that you identify your business’ “20 percent” and what it is that they really value. When you give these people exactly what they want, you will have no trouble finding other like-minded users… because you’ll be fulfilling a need other than the need for novelty.