Pinterest separates personal, business accounts

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NEW YORK Pinterest is separating business accounts from personal ones, a move that could be an early step toward making money.

Pinterest burst onto the tech scene last year, appealing to designers, wedding planners, chefs and anyone else who likes to collect and share images from the Web.

The San Francisco-based company is offering businesses more free tools for their Pinterest content. Companies already use Pinterest to share photos of clothes, recipes or design inspiration.

Other social media companies have differentiated between people and institutional users. Facebook introduced pages for users including corporations, schools and sports teams that others could "like" in 2007.

Pinterest is privately held and does not disclose revenue. Research firm comScore says the site had 26.7 million unique visitors last month, from 3.3 million in October 2011.