When Bruce Sterling spots something and considers it worthy of note, you can assume he knows what he’s on about – especially if it’s connected to his spimes idea.
But it doesn’t take a genius to see the huge disruptive potential of the "personal manufacturing network" business model behind Ponoko. I’ll simply quote their site, because I couldn’t put it more succinctly than this:
"Ponoko is the world’s first personal manufacturing platform. It’s the online space for a community of creators and consumers to use a global network of digital manufacturing hardware to co-create, make and trade individualized product ideas on demand.
The ponoko.com marketplace connects creators, consumers, digital manufacturing hardware and service providers to promote, make and trade products on Ponoko and social networking websites."
Poke around the site, and think about it. One of the few things I’ve seen recently where the tired cliche "this could change everything" really does apply.
Thanks for the comment Paul. We’ve just had an amazing few days at TechCrunch 40. And the resulting interest has been simply fantastic. We’re so excited about where we’re heading over the next few months (let alone years!) and it’s pretty awesome to have such amazing feedback through the various blogs such as yours. Ponoko for all is going to just be a blast! Cheers, Nic – Ponoko Online PR Chick.
No problems, Nic – I’m fascinated by the potential of fabbing and rapid prototyping to change the way industry operates, and if Ponoko works the way you want it to, that’s exactly what it’ll do. I know I’ll be keeping an eye open.
Cool. We’ve just fully opened up beta to New Zealand, and our guys are working as fast as their little legs can take them to get this out to the rest of the world! While it may frustrate some that we’re not open to everyone yet, we want to ensure that when it does go global it’s pretty much as near perfect as possible. It’ll be soon, promise! Cheers, Nic.