Ponoko Has a Killer Idea

I’ve talked about personal fabrication on this blog before, and I think it’s an idea whose time is near.

Ponoko was at TechCrunch40 today and I think their model — gather a community of object designers, work with a network of distributed fabrication service providers, and power a market for the output — is incredibly well thought-out. It makes the designer in me itch to learn Solidworks! I hope they make this work.

Link: Ponoko, a personal manufacturing platform

Photojojo Seeks Contributors

We’ve got a new video tutorial up on Photojojo that’s been making the rounds. This one made it onto Apartment Therapy (our 1st time on that site!), the ReadyMade blog (2nd time), the Make: blog (2nd time), and Del.icio.us Popular (3rd time). We’re really proud of this one.

We’re looking for contributors!

We want people who want to write for us, blog for us, and help us think of amazing new DIY projects for the 4,000 subscribers that have joined since we launched a month and a half ago. Interested? Know someone who might be? Please get in touch!

Photojojo is Buzzing

We launched Photojojo a week ago and the response has been tremendous. A huge thanks to all the people who’ve been subscribing via email and RSS (over a thousand so far!) We’ve got some awesome photo stuff coming for ya’ll.

I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who’s blogged us or sent people our way over the past week. I’m sure I’ve missed some, and for that I apologize!

• The Real Janelle
• 37 Signals
• Del.icio.us Popular (for two days!)
• Popurls.com and Diggdot.us and dailymashup and populicio.us
• Heath Row
• Emily Chang’s eHub
• The XPLANE Blog
• Funkaoshi
• Tiffinbox
• Planet Ajaxian
• Selective Amnesia
• Slashfood
• Blogging Baby
• Cupcakes Take the Cake
• AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Austin
• Sean Johnson
• Adam Kalsey
• Technomojo
• ñblog: utilidades y recursos para blogs
• Tocky [Japanese]

Tell your friends: Photojojo = Photography + Awesome

Update: These just in…

• Laughing Meme
• Dave Morin
• Tamer Salama
• Brainwagon
• Upian Hotlinks
• Downloadblog.it [Italian, and crazy popular]

Hello Photojojo! (The best photo DIY, tips, and gear you’ll ever find)

Photojojo is an email newsletter about the intersection of awesome + photography. We research great photo DIY projects, tips, and gear and bring them to you. It’s a project I’ve been working for a couple months now and I’m reallly excited to see it debut this week.

37 signals gave us a tip of the hat today, and The real janelle let the cat out of the bag yesterday, so we’re off to a good start!

Help us spread the word about Photojojo!

Link: Photography + Awesome = Photojojo

Technorati Tags: photojojo, diy, photography, photo, photo projects, 37signals, newsletter

Etsy Alchemy = DIY Outsourcing

I’ve been watching Etsy’s Alchemy for the past week or so. It’s a truly awesome idea.

Etsy’s a site where you can buy handmade stuff made by individual crafters (bags, shirts, jewelry, laptop cases, stuffed animals, patches using IM slang pretty much anything.) Each item’s page lists the materials used, relevant tags, and shows a bio of the creator.

Cheap handmade stuff made by real people. Cool, right?

It gets better.

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DIY: Why we think we can’t do anything for ourselves

I was at a housewarming party last weekend where I met two new people who told me the same thing.

I was talking with the first person about my roommate’s wobbly loft bed when she told me, “It will probably be fine. People think construction is a complicated black art of a thing, but it’s really pretty simple.”

I was talking with the second person about all the interesting stuff he’d learned at his new job, when he said, “There’s actually a supermarket nearby that will make mozzarella to order. It’s fantastic. But making your own is cheese is pretty easy.”

The first person was a woman who’d been managing construction for years. She knew what she was talking about. The second person was a sculptor who had started working at a cheese store in New York just a few months prior. He was modest, but he too, was telling the truth.

Two points stuck with me that night:

1) Division of labor has conditioned us to think that making things requires expertise, even when it doesn’t.

2) When we discover that we can make things ourselves, we are delighted.

As mass production gives us everything we could desire cheaply, perfectly, and efficiently, it’s only natural that we start desiring the exact opposite: things that take time and contain imperfections, things that are ineffecient.

It may make a whole lot more sense for me to spend a few dollars for cheese at a supermarket, but making my own cheese is a treat, and an experience that makes me a whole lot happier. Whether it’s cheese or a loft bed or trendy stuffed animals, the itch to create is strong within us, and it grows stronger the longer we resist scratching it.

This is a simple fact that points to a growing market for something in-between. A place for people who still don’t have the time to really do it themselves, but are itching to try.