Bankrupt Maker Faire Revives, Reduced To Make Community (techcrunch.com) 51
After being shut down last month with 22 employees losing their jobs, Maker Faire and Maker Media are coming back, but in a weakened capacity. Founder and CEO Dale Dougherty tells TechCrunch that "he's bought back the brands, domains, and content from creditors and rehired 15 of 22 laid off staffers with his own money." The report says that he will formally announce the relaunch of the company with the new name "Make Community." From the report: The company is already working on a new issue of Make Magazine that it will hope to publish quarterly (down from six times per year) and the online archives of its do-it-yourself project guides will remain available. It hopes to keep publishing books. And it will continue to license the Maker Faire name to event organizers who've thrown over 200 of the festivals full of science-art and workshops in 40 countries. But Dougherty doesn't have the funding to commit to producing the company-owned flagship Bay Area and New York Maker Faires any more.
For now, Dougherty is financing the revival himself "with the goal that we can get back up to speed as a business, and start generating revenue and a magazine again. This is where the community support needs to come in because I can't fund it for very long." The immediate plan is to announce a new membership model next week at Make.co where hobbyists and craft-lovers can pay a monthly or annual fee to become patrons of Make Community. Dougherty was cagey about what they'll get in return beyond a sense of keeping alive the organization that's held the maker community together since 2005. He does hope to get the next Make Magazine issue out by the end of summer or early fall, and existing subscribers should get it in the mail.
For now, Dougherty is financing the revival himself "with the goal that we can get back up to speed as a business, and start generating revenue and a magazine again. This is where the community support needs to come in because I can't fund it for very long." The immediate plan is to announce a new membership model next week at Make.co where hobbyists and craft-lovers can pay a monthly or annual fee to become patrons of Make Community. Dougherty was cagey about what they'll get in return beyond a sense of keeping alive the organization that's held the maker community together since 2005. He does hope to get the next Make Magazine issue out by the end of summer or early fall, and existing subscribers should get it in the mail.
Hobbyist Faire (Score:5, Insightful)
The first time I went to a Maker Faire it was kind of interesting -- everyone there was a hobbyist of some kind showing off their projects (although half of it was 3-D printers and arduinos).
The next year I returned saw that the about a third of the exhibitors were commercial vendors, with Microsoft having a huge display right at the entrance showing off their "Surface" tablet which had just come out.
I haven't been back since.
Which One? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a few commercial vendors at the Detroit Maker Faire, but they all have a maker theme to them. Bose has a DIY smart speaker kit, for example, and Moog had a great talk on building your own synthesizer.
Re: (Score:3)
The first time I went to a Maker Faire it was kind of interesting -- everyone there was a hobbyist of some kind showing off their projects (although half of it was 3-D printers and arduinos).
The next year I returned saw that the about a third of the exhibitors were commercial vendors, with Microsoft having a huge display right at the entrance showing off their "Surface" tablet which had just come out.
I haven't been back since.
The hobbyists were still there, but in the crowded exhibition hall -- the big commercial vendors just helped pay the bills. When they pulled out, then there wasn't enough revenue to support the fair.
Re: Typical Slashdot (Score:3)
How was the sandwich?
Re: (Score:3)
Given my experience with the "maker" community, the grilled cheese will in fact mean that you are an uber maker.
I found the group to be a lot of uninspired granolas hanging out in an industrial area basement and creating "art" by gluing together pieces of trash that they scored from a dumpster dive. While they had an area for welding and nearly worn out machine tools, I found very little interest in actually learning the physics of how to use these tools. More power to them, but they were beyond boring.
Re: (Score:1)
Tell me about it. I couldn't even parse the headline.
Those big festivals don't make sense (Score:3)
I never bothered to go to the local maker fair because it was in SF, which made going at least twice as expensive as if it had been someplace reasonable.
It doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time, effort, and money putting together these large events when you could reach more people with less investment with a larger number of smaller, more localized events.
Anything that encourages people to drive for hundreds of miles is harmful to the environment. What's the total environmental impact of burning man? SXSW? Coachella?
Re: (Score:2)
What kind? No wait, it doesn't matter what kind because if you have a car at all then you're a hypocrite.
I would be a hypocrite if I didn't acknowledge my personal impact. But I avoid commutes, and unnecessary drives, and I support alternatives like rail transport. And in keeping with what I'm talking about, I avoid going to events which are far away. Point to the hypocrisy.
The last owners killed the community (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully the new owners won't do what the last owners did.
They put restrictions on the use of the term "maker's faire" and any community who wanted to use that name had to meet certain requirements and pay them a licensing fee. A lot of communities wanted to host their own "maker fairs" but ran into oppressive restrictions.
Re:The last owners killed the community (Score:5, Informative)
You're gonna be disappointed.
Same people behind it, same idea of licensing the name.
Nothing more than a shell game.
Re: (Score:2)
Call it a Hobbyist Fair and there you go.
Re: (Score:3)
Hopefully the new owners won't do what the last owners did.
The first AC reply to you already correctly pointed it out.
Dale Dougherty was the former CEO of Maker Media, and Todd Sotkicwicz was their former CFO.
Both are back and in the same positions.
Instead of being the now bankrupt "Maker Media", they are "Make Community LLC"
You can read a transcript of Dale's "open meeting" for relaunching the company here:
https://github.com/bbenchoff/Conversation-With-Dale [github.com]
Alienating the grass roots maker movement wasn't addressed as a problem, so likely isn't a thing needing fixi
Not to wax negative but... (Score:2)
...this doesn't bode well. When the founder appeals to nostalgia for financial help, announces a fundraising effort without any obvious return to participants, it sounds like the exact same sort of business non-acumen that caused the company to shut down in the first place.
RE: Not to wax negative but... (Score:2)
A printed magazine? (Score:2)
I attended the NY maker faire with my son and we lovrd it. Make magazine was the last magazine subscription I ever held. I am still inspired when I look at the collection of them on my bookshelf because every time I opened one I saw something inside it that I wanted to build.
But I no longer subscribe to printed magazines. And there are soooooo many free do-it-yourself instructables, youtube channels, etc that I see no need to subscribe to an online one. With that said, if my subscription money goes to r
Well... (Score:3)
What a fun process it was, too. Barnes and Noble had a shrink-wrap cardboard bit for sale offering half off a Make subscription. I think it was $25. I got it home, opened it up, and it told me to go to a certain web page and enter the code hidden inside.
The web page did not exist. 404 not found, maybe it's been moved? Maybe it just didn't exist in the first place and this was fraud, more like it.
After pointing this fact out to Make customer support, they graciously offered to give me a year's subscription just because they wanted to keep their members happy. How about because you sold the subscription and already had the money? No concern for that concept?
The last three issues have been rather bland. I threw the request to renew away. This is truly one magazine that wasn't killed by online info, it committed suicide.
That's too bad (Score:2)
Lost alot of faith when they went after Naomi Wu (Score:1)
Will miss MF and so will others (Score:2)
I remember the Maker Faire Bay Area, it was crowded, noisy, and working a booth was very exhausting. But damn was it fun. In later years seemed crowds were less as if people in general were becoming less of hobbyists/hackers/tinkerers/makers. Or could it be the signs of the times that for any large event it needs a multi-million (or billion) company to provide the anchor funding?
Maker Faire had just about everything from robotics to knitting plus multitudes of various weird stuff that one has to ask, "wha
Auto-play video right on the homepage... (Score:2)