The Explosion of 3D Print Connector and Model Services

By on July 5th, 2015 in Ideas

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It’s another week and there’s another batch of new online connector services for 3D models. 

This is a bit baffling to us: why are there are so many of these services – and there are more every week! Here’s a short list of the new services we’ve noticed THIS WEEK ALONE: 

Sinter3D, to be launched later this month, will provide a platform where: 

You get to convert your design to 3D, upload it to get it 3D printed by thousands of highly skilled 3D printing professionals across the globe. You even get to sell your 3D product through the Sinter3D marketplace.  

MAKEit3D is another connector service, which they say is: 

The marketplace for 3d designs, providing a creative community for passionate 3d designers to sell their designs.

3D Print Toys specializes in toy models: 

Our goal at 3DPrint.toys is to continue to support and help grow the 3D Printing industry by providing access and information about creative 3D Printable Toy and Craft Models.

Trinpy offers 3D model buying and selling: 

It’s like the Spotify of 3D printing! Trinpy is a platform where users can download high quality 3D printing models and designers can share models to earn royalties.

The “Spotify of 3D Printing”? Hm. 

Again, these are the services we noticed THIS WEEK. It seems there are similar operations launching constantly. We wonder how these ventures hope to differentiate themselves from the massive numbers of competing services, most of which are virtually identical in services. 

One thought is that they could differentiate on 3D models, if they were to hold exclusive rights to certain in-demand 3D models. However, designers want to sell their works, so their objective is to place their works on as many sites and services as possible, so it could be very difficult for startup model services to make such arrangements. 

But who knows, perhaps some of them will succeed in this increasingly Darwin-style competition for champions of 3D model sharing services. 

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!