Ravelry
File:Ravelry Logo.png | |
Type | Private |
---|---|
Founded | 2007 |
Founder | Casey and Jessica Forbes |
Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
Owner | Ravelry, LLC |
Website | http://www.ravelry.com/ |
Type of site | Social Network, e-commerce |
Registration | Free |
Launched | 2007 |
Ravelry is a free social networking website, beta-launched in May 2007. It functions as an organizational tool for a variety of fiber arts including knitting, crocheting, spinning, and weaving. Members share projects, ideas, and their collection of yarn, fiber, and tools via various components.[1] As of January, 2010 Ravelry had 600,000+ members worldwide.
Development
Husband and wife Casey and Jessica Forbes founded Ravelry in May 2007. Their idea was to create a web presence for all fiber artists.
In addition to serving as a social network site for users to discuss their crafts, Ravelry facilitates micro-business, allowing crafters to sell their patterns or yarns[2]. Both large- and small-scale businesses are able to advertise their wares on the site. The site has been also used by some for market research[3].
Ravelry has been mentioned by Tim Bray as one "of the world’s more successful deployments of Ruby and Rails technologies."[4]
Features
"Ravelry has become the Internet tool to help the typical needle-wielder navigate through the woolly wild."[5]
Information in Ravelry is organized via a series of tabs. Some customization is available within the tabs: i.e., the ability to re-sort information contained in a tab, create sub-tabs, or change the level of detail displayed. As the site is still in beta, new features and enhancements are being made frequently. Often these features and enhancements are driven by the community.
Organization
First, Ravelry is an organizational tool for knitters and crocheters. It includes a project album, a yarn stash album/inventory, and a needle inventory sheet. These are all tools for personal organization.[6]
Research
Ravelry is also a yarn and pattern database and research tool. It consists of a searchable community-edited yarn and pattern database where users share information and project photos. The database was created by encouraging people to share their projects and information.[7]
Social Networking
The site has forums, groups, and friend-related features that give people ways to interact with other knitters and crocheters.
Shop
Ravelry has three sub-shops within it. These help to generate income to maintain the site. They include the Ravelry Mini-Mart which sells a small range of items such as t-shirts, bags, and stickers that have logos on them, a Marketplace where small adverts are displayed for a range of fiber arts related products and the Pattern Stores which sells PDF versions of patterns.
A small portion of the sales from the Pattern Stores goes to Ravelry, 98.7%, goes to the designers. [8]
Photo Support
Photos can be added to project and stash pages by connecting to the user's own Flickr or Photobucket or Picasa account or by uploading a photo directly (although direct uploading is currently limited).
See also
References
- ↑ "10 Cool Niche Social Networks"
- ↑ Humphreys, Sal. "The economies within an online social network market : A case study of Ravelry" ANZCA 09 annual conference : Communication, Creativity and Global Citizenship, 8-10 July 2009, QUT Brisbane.
- ↑ "Entrepreneur stitches together Fibre Space by sticking to a business plan"
- ↑ "Ravelry" Tim Bray
- ↑ "Web Site for Knitting Nuts Has New York Needlers in Stitches"
- ↑ "Ravelry" Tim Bray
- ↑ "Ravelry" Tim Bray
- ↑ Unraveled
External links
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