Etsy Examined

If you haven’t read it yet, Rob Walker’s feature article Handmade 2.0 in this week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine is an informative, insightful piece about the marriage between DIY and Web 2.0, focusing largely on the runaway success of online marketplace Etsy. What makes the article such a great read is the detail to which Walker chronicles the recent history of DIY, examining the reasons for its rise as a cultural phenomenon with regard to the growth of the internet and web 2.0.

One (rather long, but it would be a shame to chop it) highlight from the piece:

I was more interested in what made Etsy seem different from so many current efforts to “build community” online: the luck or genius of the site is that Kalin and the other founders encountered in the D.I.Y./craft scene something that was already social, community-minded, supportive and aggressively using the Web. It seemed to me that the company’s future would depend not only on the success of its sellers but also on its reputation among them. Nor could its reputation simply be for business acumen. If all Etsy did was channel D.I.Y.-ism into a profit machine, it could easily be seen as monetizing — exploiting — the creativity and hustle of 70,000 indiepreneurs. There was a cultural dimension, too.

Kalin clearly understood all this. The company does not, for instance, demand exclusivity. Indeed it seems to want its sellers to market themselves aggressively on their own sites, in stores, at fairs. So in its idealized role as Swimmy, Etsy constantly holds entrepreneurial workshops (how to build your “global microbrand”), pointing to “best practices” among Etsy sellers, offering shop critiques, advising how to “write a killer press release.” Its magazine-videocast, The Storque, often feels like a D.I.Y. business school. In addition, Kalin has hired about a half-dozen of the best Etsy sellers to work directly for the company, in jobs meant to spread their skills to as many sellers as possible. Some help run Etsy Labs, a community-centric program held at the company’s headquarters, teaching craft skills.

The New York Times Magazine: Handmade 2.0

Etsy