What do women really want? Pinterest knows

The top pins of all-time on Pinterest, a social sharing site that is dominated by women. (Repinly)

In terms of users, Pinterest is poised to surpass Twitter and has already buried Tumblr — and has done it largely without the help of men.

Women are five times more likely to use Pinterest as men, according to figures released by Pew Research from a December 2012 survey. In fact, 25 percent of women who use the Internet use Pinterest — that's 36 million who pin and repin photos of whatever catches their fancy online.

[pullquote]

But it's not enough to know that women love Pinterest. Repinly, the first site to dedicate itself full-time to tracking Pinterest activity, offers some interesting facts about "pinners" and what they pin.

The top 10 pinners — all of whom are women — each have more than 5 million followers. The No. 1- ranked member, Joy Cho of Los Angeles, has close to 12 million followers.

The most popular category on Pinterest based on the number of pins is "Food and Drink," which accounts for 11 percent of pins on the site. The most popular pin of all time is a recipe for garlicky cheese bread from Mandy Wakeman that made her husband drool, she noted in her comment — thousands of pinners agreed and repinned the photo more than 96,000 times. In second place is a photo showing "Rainbow Fruit Kebobs," with colorful fruit arranged — you guessed it — to look like a rainbow.

The second most popular category is "DIY and Crafts," which has about 10 percent of all pins. The all-time favorite pin shows how to create a piece of art by melting crayons with a hair dryer — and make yet another rainbow.

Most pinners (80 percent) repin a photo that has already been posted to the site. But the other 20 percent of pinners find their pictures on other sites. While the most popular place to find images is Google , it accounts for only 5 percent of pins. Etsy, the online shop for handcrafted items, ranks second at 2 percent and photos uploaded by pinners ranks a close third.