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Martha May Make MakerBot Mainstream

By Rain Noe - November 17, 2014

in Design Business | Digital Fabrication

We all know what Oprah's Book Club has done for authors. Can Martha Stewart do the same for MakerBot?

Apparently that's the hope. Today MakerBot and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced that they've launched an exclusive partnership, whereby not only will there be co-branded PLA filaments available for sale—forget yellow, blue and green, shortly you'll be printing in "Lemon Drop," "Robin's Egg" and "Jadeite"—but Martha's team of designers will also be producing downloadable designs for consumer purchase.

It's easy for the hardened ID'er to snicker, but this actually signifies a potentially massive shift, or at least the start of one, for 3D printing to go seriously mainstream. If Martha Stewart's gigantic audience can be wooed into paying 99 cents to download a design they can print as many times as they want, it's entirely possible MakerBot will start seeing some sales spikes.

The initial offerings, however, leave something to be desired. The inaugural Trellis Collection of homewares, which features designs for "a coaster, napkin ring, place card holder and LED votive holder" that can be downloaded for 99 cents each or $2.99 for all of 'em, is very clearly a freshman effort that isn't exactly going to make it into the MoMA. I think she'd do better to tap a name-brand designer or starchitect, and then we'd really see the needle start to move.

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Adrian

10 years ago

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I doubt that Martha advertising this will do anything while the MakerBot Mini, the cheapest model, is still $1,375.
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k

10 years ago

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We may not need those toy capsule vending machines but there are still millions of them. Also pretty sure they have sold millions of Easy Bake Ovens. @Evan T. you seem to be hating on the idea of 3D printing and the excessive consumerism in the world(which is a separate issue). This is still consumerism but cancels out the shipping things across the globe just to have a capsule toy for the 15min that you enjoy it. This business model looks a lot like ITunes to me. Which was launched in an environment where most people were illegally downloading for free to get digital music they still made money and were successful and is probably where the majority of consumers now get their music. I think this Martha Stewart thing has potential. Females make ~85% of purchases, this is deeelux for the stay at home mom or crafty youth.
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Evan T.

10 years ago

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A plastic napkin ring by a starchitect is still a plastic napkin ring. I'm still not convinced that the average consumer needs to print plastic trinkets any more than we need those toy capsule vending machines in the front of supermarkets. For anyone that is not a maker, these 3D printers just seem like an easy bake oven for kids and toy enthusiasts. Im sure 3D printing will find its killer app eventually, but somehow I dont think Martha Stewart will have anything to do with it.
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Mike

10 years ago

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Go read some Makerbot 5th gen reviews and get back to me.
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