Pinterest is finally now open to any user who wants to use it. You no longer have to be invited. It’s not as if an invitation was hard to come by, but this should only open the social network up to even more growth.

The company said in a blog post:

For those of you who haven’t joined Pinterest yet, this means you can sign up without waiting for an invite: all you have to do is go to Pinterest.com to get started. In addition to using your Facebook or Twitter login, we’re also opening registration so you can sign up with just your email address.

We’re really excited to have the capacity to offer Pinterest to more people and if you’re a Pinner with friends who’ve been waiting on the sidelines, we hope you’ll let them know. Happy pinning to everyone!

Pinterest has seen tremendous growth from Facebook’s open graph and timeline, and now that invitations are no longer required, it’s hard to imagine growth slowing too much. It recently expanded its category offerings, and it woułd only make sense if it continued to do so. It has a reputation for attracting a largely female audience, though plenty of males have found enough reasons to use it. Further category expansion could only serve to expand that audience.

Brands are certainly not shying away. According to a study from SimplyMeasured, out this week, 51% of the top 100 global brands now have Pinterest accounts.

That’s about half of those who are on Facebook, but the number is also likely to grow.