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Introducing the BlenderNation Community Store

37
By on BlenderNation

Both Blender and the Blender community have been advancing at an incredible pace over the last two years - there is more and more activity and the users are rapidly becoming more professional. Being editors of BlenderNation we're in front-row seat watching an amazing journey!

As a result, more commercial products and services are appearing. In a article which I wrote over 2,5 years ago I was already putting forward my belief that these commercial endeavors are a GOOD thing for Blender (and for Open Source in general) - they give more credibility to the project by providing much-needed documentation, training, support, access to developers and artists.

Still, how do you sell your product or service to a community? So far, getting a post on BlenderNation was the best thing you could hope for - most people will sell really well for a few days but then the effect falls off and you're back in the dark. There had to be a better way.

About six months ago I realized that what we needed was a marketplace where people can showcase their products and services. After a lot of preparations, today I'm proud to announce the BlenderNation Community Store. The Store works like a showcase: people can list their products or services. If you want to order something, you are sent to the owner's website.

We've discussed the idea many times with Ton Roosendaal from the Blender Foundation. Ton writes:

Blender is getting adopted by many more studios and professionals. A big bottleneck for them is still having lack of support, training, consultancy or integration services. I'm very happy to see Blendernation enabling this for our users and developers with the Community Store. Time to get to business guys!

The Community Store is a commercial project on its own - preparing and running it takes a lot of time, which I cannot spend on other work. We've done our best to keep the prices fair though. On top of that, if you sign up before December 1st 2008 you'll receive one product listing for free for four weeks – without any obligations.

Will this interfere with the integrity of our news service? No - you will still read reviews that are fair and honest. To prevent any conflict of interest, the people who are running the shop (for now, that's me) will not be writing product reviews anymore. We'll also keep listing new products as news, regardless of whether they're in the Store or not.

2,5 years ago I concluded with the following statement and I'll use it here again:

Now would be a good time to start thinking about how YOU could make a living by supporting Blender. The opportunities are there, you just need to seize them.

Links

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

37 Comments

  3. Corentin on

    First, it is a very good idea. I have been thinking about the same thing : a blender market place.

    For the moment, I just want to submit you some little bug :
    1- when you click on the tab "store" the tab is not highlighted.
    2- when you click on the "about", the store tab disapear.

    Thanks you for this new feature.

    Maybe I can suggest you one other feature I think great :
    Why not integrating a search field in blender (client software) in order to search for objects, materials, textures, sounds and so on from your blender nation store repository.
    User could directly import what they want directly into blender without openning a web browser. object could be getted for free or could be buyed (of course it supposed loggin on the store from blender).
    It could be then increase the productivity of the users.

    what do you think about ?

    Reply
  4. Corentin on

    First, it is a very good idea. I have been thinking about the same thing : a blender market place.

    For the moment, I just want to submit you some little bug :
    1- when you click on the tab "store" the tab is not highlighted.
    2- when you click on the "about", the store tab disapear.

    Thanks you for this new feature.

    Maybe I can suggest you one other feature I think great :
    Why not integrating a search field in blender (client software) in order to search for objects, materials, textures, sounds and so on from your blender nation store repository.
    User could directly import what they want directly into blender without openning a web browser. object could be getted for free or could be buyed (of course it supposed loggin on the store from blender).
    It could be then increase the productivity of the users.

    what do you think about ?

    Reply
  5. Bart on

    Thanks Corentin! I've fixed #2 (cleared the site's cache). I'll have to think about 1) a bit longer but I'll fix it.

    The integrated objects browser is something that was discussed last year at the BCONF too. It's certainly something that would help to push Blender further I think. It's just harder to build than a Store ;-)

    Reply
  6. Bart on

    Thanks Corentin! I've fixed #2 (cleared the site's cache). I'll have to think about 1) a bit longer but I'll fix it.

    The integrated objects browser is something that was discussed last year at the BCONF too. It's certainly something that would help to push Blender further I think. It's just harder to build than a Store ;-)

    Reply
  7. dyf on

    that's a great idea.. thanks for the news Bart.. i agree blender is growing like crazy these days :)
    this idea should attract commercial interest in blender and eventually help make it better

    Reply
  8. dyf on

    that's a great idea.. thanks for the news Bart.. i agree blender is growing like crazy these days :)
    this idea should attract commercial interest in blender and eventually help make it better

    Reply
  13. banor on

    Hey, thanks a ton... this is awesome. What about Community Projects? A listing of all the major (or minor) projects being undertaken with Blender: the Morevna Project, Project Durian and Project Mango, Project London, Plumiferos, and others. Besides that, members could submit their personal major WIPs to be listed on the side.

    It's just a thought, but as the world of Blender is also driven by the open source mind, I advocate the idea as a valuable asset to the readers of this site.

    If someone learns about a new Blender-driven open project and then, as times passes, that person forgets about the project for 6 months and one day finds out it's done, well, they are not able to contribute anymore, and then there's not much worth in their previously considering to contribute to it or not, because it's too late and they were not constantly informed.

    Just some thoughts,
    God bless,
    -b
    http://minosafilms.wordpress.com/

    Reply
  14. banor on

    Hey, thanks a ton... this is awesome. What about Community Projects? A listing of all the major (or minor) projects being undertaken with Blender: the Morevna Project, Project Durian and Project Mango, Project London, Plumiferos, and others. Besides that, members could submit their personal major WIPs to be listed on the side.

    It's just a thought, but as the world of Blender is also driven by the open source mind, I advocate the idea as a valuable asset to the readers of this site.

    If someone learns about a new Blender-driven open project and then, as times passes, that person forgets about the project for 6 months and one day finds out it's done, well, they are not able to contribute anymore, and then there's not much worth in their previously considering to contribute to it or not, because it's too late and they were not constantly informed.

    Just some thoughts,
    God bless,
    -b
    http://minosafilms.wordpress.com/

    Reply
  25. Andrew on

    Yeah, Autodesk buying Soft for 35 million..... Literally sent shivers down my spine... Over the past few years Soft has actually come along way and each release had new and usable features... It was a solid program and more importantly a solid competitor for Autodesk. I was worried when they bought Maya but this kicks it up a few notches... They literally own the 3 major (Commercial) flagship packages out there (Sorry Lightwave users). That said this announcement has perfect timing and kinda snapped me out of the shock from what I was just talkin about. I'll be looking into this store for sure.... Great work guys!

    Reply
  26. Andrew on

    Yeah, Autodesk buying Soft for 35 million..... Literally sent shivers down my spine... Over the past few years Soft has actually come along way and each release had new and usable features... It was a solid program and more importantly a solid competitor for Autodesk. I was worried when they bought Maya but this kicks it up a few notches... They literally own the 3 major (Commercial) flagship packages out there (Sorry Lightwave users). That said this announcement has perfect timing and kinda snapped me out of the shock from what I was just talkin about. I'll be looking into this store for sure.... Great work guys!

    Reply
  29. tyrant monkey on

    cool idea i hope that it takes off. if it encourages more people to write books or create training dvd's for blender it can only be a good thing

    Reply
  30. tyrant monkey on

    cool idea i hope that it takes off. if it encourages more people to write books or create training dvd's for blender it can only be a good thing

    Reply
  33. Joris on

    There is a little publishing fault on the home page:
    Essential Blender
    Price: € 27.20 € 34.00

    I think the new price is € 27.20 and doesn't need to be striped.
    In this case is the € 34.00 green and the new price ;)

    Little mistaken I think..

    Reply
  34. Joris on

    There is a little publishing fault on the home page:
    Essential Blender
    Price: € 27.20 € 34.00

    I think the new price is € 27.20 and doesn't need to be striped.
    In this case is the € 34.00 green and the new price ;)

    Little mistaken I think..

    Reply
  43. Terence on

    wow - I hadn't heard about the autodesk/softimage thing. It does sound like they are trying to eliminate competition by buying them out - sounds like some other behemoth software company.

    Reply
  44. Terence on

    wow - I hadn't heard about the autodesk/softimage thing. It does sound like they are trying to eliminate competition by buying them out - sounds like some other behemoth software company.

    Reply
  55. felix on

    oh, and besides the freelancers, would it be considerable to have some people offer them selves as blender support 'gurus'?

    just asking.. :)

    Reply
  56. felix on

    oh, and besides the freelancers, would it be considerable to have some people offer them selves as blender support 'gurus'?

    just asking.. :)

    Reply
  57. Nathan Letwory on

    @felix: AFAIK you can use your PayPal account also with a bank account. I'm not sure in what countries that all is possible, but at least I have added my bank account as pay option.

    /Nathan

    Reply
  58. Nathan Letwory on

    @felix: AFAIK you can use your PayPal account also with a bank account. I'm not sure in what countries that all is possible, but at least I have added my bank account as pay option.

    /Nathan

    Reply
  59. Bob on

    While I would question the tie between commercial and credible (would you rather get kisses for free or pay for them... its not a trick question), there are a lot of people making money from free (GPL) software. Using Linux as an example, there are people making a good amount of money, one that comes to mind is a company Goo ...something, I think it rhymes with frugal. Be sure to, to put (maybe at the top of the page) a place where people can donate to the "The Blender Foundation'(tm). I have bought a couple of books (Tony Mullen) originally reviewed on BN, and think it would be good to remind people to support the foundation (along with buying books, etc).
    Bob

    Reply
  60. Bob on

    While I would question the tie between commercial and credible (would you rather get kisses for free or pay for them... its not a trick question), there are a lot of people making money from free (GPL) software. Using Linux as an example, there are people making a good amount of money, one that comes to mind is a company Goo ...something, I think it rhymes with frugal. Be sure to, to put (maybe at the top of the page) a place where people can donate to the "The Blender Foundation'(tm). I have bought a couple of books (Tony Mullen) originally reviewed on BN, and think it would be good to remind people to support the foundation (along with buying books, etc).
    Bob

    Reply
  63. Bart on

    @roofoo: listing both dollar and euro prices - I'm happy to add both a dollar and euro price if publishers/freelancers lists their prices as such. I don't plan to add automated currency conversion yet, maybe on the longer term..

    @felix: offering your service as a 'guru': absolutely! If you have a professional way of offering Blender support I think that would be great.

    @Dave: adding t-shirts: that's up to the Blender Foundation. They chose to add BBB, Apricot and Essential Blender for now. Would be cool though, yes. Any interest in a BlenderNation tee? ;-)

    Reply
  64. Bart on

    @roofoo: listing both dollar and euro prices - I'm happy to add both a dollar and euro price if publishers/freelancers lists their prices as such. I don't plan to add automated currency conversion yet, maybe on the longer term..

    @felix: offering your service as a 'guru': absolutely! If you have a professional way of offering Blender support I think that would be great.

    @Dave: adding t-shirts: that's up to the Blender Foundation. They chose to add BBB, Apricot and Essential Blender for now. Would be cool though, yes. Any interest in a BlenderNation tee? ;-)

    Reply
  65. Vilem Novak on

    Hi, I find the store idea great, and also think it's great that more commercial activities develop around blender. However, I must say the prices seem too high for me right now. I'm not a seller of any product, but I am a freelancer which looks for occasional jobs. It might be that I come from czech republic where the economic standard isn't still that high(but still much higher than in most parts of the world), and I can imagine freelancers from poor countries could never afford such an advertisement. Well, For now, I'll simply try the free 4-weeks offer(as soon as I'm actually free for more jobs), and If I manage to get more money than the advertisement costs, I'll continue advertising. My suggestion about this would be to offer individual consultations/contracts with people from different countries.

    Reply
  66. Vilem Novak on

    Hi, I find the store idea great, and also think it's great that more commercial activities develop around blender. However, I must say the prices seem too high for me right now. I'm not a seller of any product, but I am a freelancer which looks for occasional jobs. It might be that I come from czech republic where the economic standard isn't still that high(but still much higher than in most parts of the world), and I can imagine freelancers from poor countries could never afford such an advertisement. Well, For now, I'll simply try the free 4-weeks offer(as soon as I'm actually free for more jobs), and If I manage to get more money than the advertisement costs, I'll continue advertising. My suggestion about this would be to offer individual consultations/contracts with people from different countries.

    Reply
  67. Lassi on

    Hmm. So you basically sell space to advertise for products and services. Prices seem a bit high unless you have huge amounts of people browsing there and buying stuff every day...

    Reply
  68. Lassi on

    Hmm. So you basically sell space to advertise for products and services. Prices seem a bit high unless you have huge amounts of people browsing there and buying stuff every day...

    Reply

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