My first reaction to “Autodesk Acquires Instructables” was ”Why would they buy an old Pixar movie?”. I then realised it wasn’t “Incredibles”, duh!, but still had no idea what an Instructables was.
Phillip Torrone’s post on Make, which I found via tenlinks.com, is a nice summary of the Instructables community, how it could fit with Autodesk products and speculation on why Autodesk have acquired it. It also has some useful examples of the perils of other corporate community acquisitions:
MAKE | Autodesk Acquires Instructables: What It Means for Makers
The big news this week was “Autodesk Acquires Instructables.” It’s taken me a few days of really thinking about this for my column. Autodesk is jumping in to the biggest DIY community online — it’s a huge risk, with a likely even bigger reward. I think Autodesk knows how to make a thriving business for professionals, but what about makers? That’s what this week’s Soapbox is about: Autodesk acquiring Instructables and what it means for makers….
This statement on the Instructables Blog gives the Autodesk & Instructables view:
Instructables Joins Autodesk - Instructables Blog
“
The Instructables community is incredible: you build, bake, and create amazing things, then share your projects and ideas with the world. I think it’s great when someone builds a project using instructions from our site, but it’s even more amazing when we inspire someone to start (or finish) that project they’ve always dreamed of. This has been my vision for Instructables: to have a positive impact on the world by giving passionate people great publishing tools to document their projects, and connect them to a community full of like-minded people”
“Instructables will be the community arm of the same team that makes 123D, SketchBook, Homestyler, and Pixlr, which will help provide creative tools, inspiration, and services for all types of creative people”
I don't know much about the Make community in NZ but it will be interesting to see how this develops or, perhaps more appropriately, what will they make of it?!
