When one fills the need of a particular demographic, and does it well; word of mouth is all you need.

Neat, huh?

Thank you!

thanks
ma

There are now 264,780 users – go Casey and Jess!

Last 2 years, I bought 2 spinning wheels from New Zealand (I live in Canada) – online purchases total to $1600.

Since January of this year, my guestimate is that I’ve spent ~ $5000. on yarn and fibre so far. About 3/4 of that was spent online shopping. I have expensive tastes.

My son is almost ready to move out on his own soon. Think of my spending potential then.

How patronising! I’m a senior analyst programmer so I guess I’m what you would call ‘tech savvy’. I also like knitting – shock horror!

Oh and Susan – “Maybe because knitting is not an activity that requires great intellect” – is that so? Have you ever stopped to consider how, if given a ball of yarn and 2 pointy sticks, you could make say, a cardigan or a sock? Granted, you don’t need much intellect to just follow a simple pattern – but lots of knitters design their own stuff – which usually involves quite a bit of maths.

I think its great that Ravelry was written about in TechCrunch and I hope it gains popularity as the Beta continues to be rolled out to the general public. Thanks for acknowleging our craft!!

and yes, i’m anxiously awaiting my raveling invite! in the meantime i guess i’ll go mess about with my Proce55ing sketchbook…

Congratulations on having your ass handed to you by a bunch of knitters. Clearly you failed to use your beloved internet to really read up on what knitters are really like. If you’d done your reading, you’d see that few generalizations can be made. We are a diverse crowd. If you look at enough blogs, you will stumble across knitters who are straight men, gay men, lesbians, liberals, conservatives, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, old, young, goths, punks, Stay at home mothers, childless by choice…

I could keep going but surely you get the idea. The only thing we all have in common is that we knit… and that we are usually armed with pointy sticks.

I noticed many people asking about the marketing of Ravelry. I believe the first beta testers were some of the more well known knit bloggers (not all the big ones, I think the Yarn Harlot (7000+ in Bloglines) just recently got her login info) who then wrote about it. The rest is just word-of-blog. Such is the power of knit bloggers!

I personally think that humour which does nothing but exploit a stereotype is very lame humour. Hey, I’m posting about knitting – let’s imply that it’s a total waste of time that only appeals to a small group of elderly Luddites. Great, next time let’s post about the French and how they all smell of garlic.

Though I would not consider myself tech savvy, I am married to a software engineer. My husband helped me put up one of the very first knitting web sites on the www in the early 90s. It was just a matter of a few months later there were literally thousands of new knitting sites up. I have also been involved for years in email discussion groups and yahoo groups for knitting of all types.

There is something about knitting that brings people together. It does not matter how we do it, but we find ways to get together by whatever means is possible. It would only be natural that a technical society like ours would lead to knitters getting together in a technical way.

I do not understand where this idea of a knitter being an old lady in a rocking chair has come from. All the hundreds and thousands of knitters I have met over my lifetime have been just normal average every day people like me. None have ever fit the stereo type.

Knitting is an art form that has been around for more than 10,000 years. For the scoffers out there–next time you want a cashmere sweater. Instead of buying it, try making it.

There’s also a load of us crocheters! And guess what – you can do more with crochet than doilies and afghans. There are some very beautiful garments out there crocheted, and it has been as much in the mainstream of fashion in the past few years as knit. Just hate being buried. People need to realize and remember that Ravelry isn’t just for knitting – it’s for all fiber artists!

So many good points.

I’m guessing that the opening line was a little bit of sarcasm? (I’m hoping anyway.)

Us knitterly gals (and guys) are, as nearly everyone above said, tech savvy, smart and much geekier than you would think.

I can attest that the knitters and the geeks get along famously. I am one half of a knitter/geek couple, and we have both crossed over. He knits and I am proud to be a geek. So let’s all be friends.

Pretty please?

IME, when there’s a logical fallacy presented regarding a population, it has its root in personal experience.

Ex: Aunt Margie knit me god-awful sweaters every year of my life. Aunt Margie barely owns a microwave (let alone a computer). Therefore all knitters are Luddites that knit their nephews sweaters with whales on them.

Welcome to our population. We’re from everywhere and work in a variety of fields – including the technology fields. Some of us are Physicians, others are Lawyers and Librarian. Some are Engineers and others are Clergy. We’re men and women and we knit for many reasons.

As for “move along, nothing to see here”, you’ve acknowledges that knitting continues to gain in popularity. Were I interested in marketing or in development of new business ideas (and the structures that support them) I might very well pay attention.

If, on the other hand I’m content with my own preconceived ideas, then move-along is perhaps the kindest statement yet.