3D Printing: The Trends?

Which 3D printer manufacturers are most popular? That's very hard to say, since internal company statistics are often difficult to find. However, Google is Our Friend in this case, since they offer a free trending service: Google Trends.

Google Trends does not tell you which item is most popular. Instead they simply tell you the relative amount of searching done over time for specified keywords. In other words, what is "top of mind" for people using the web?

The scientists here at Fabbaloo decided to take a look at the latest trends. First, the major 3D printer manufacturers: 3D systems, Stratasys, Objet, Solido and Z Corporation:

We see the leader in searches, by far, seems to be Objet, with Solido receiving around half of their search volume. The other manufacturers are not particularly visible, perhaps due to the specific way people might search for them. It's always good to have a very unique company name! The other observation is the news volume: for these companies, it's increasing over time, meaning more people will know about them.

We performed a second trends analysis using the hobbyist manufacturers and received very different results:

While Fab@Home made a splash in early 2007, it's had very low search volume since. RepRap is much more popular and has been growing during the past year. However, the big trend seems to be MakerBot, who appear in mid-2009 and are growing fast. Of the hobbyist market, they seem to be the current top search term.

Via Google Trends

Comments

[Shadow]

I don't think the data about "objet" or "solido" is relevant :

- "objet" is also a very common French word (and most people looking for it, as Google Trends show, come from French speaking countries)
- "solido" is... a word used by Spanish and Italian speaking people. You might notice that "solido" is a popular search in... Mexico.

[Replicator]

<< Google Trends is not Google Search >>

'Objet' as a word is indeed common in Google Search -- but Google Trends differentiates between the word and the company.

If you run a search on the word Objet in Google Trends the result is: http://www.google.com/trends?q=objet which shows actual Objet 3D Printing news:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/industrials/objet-geometries-connextm-receives--radtech-usa-emerging-technologies-award/-1026532312

[Shadow]

If you click on "more news results", you will see many news about "maison and objet" (which is apparently a Paris based company), "objet d'art" or "objet non identifié" (French expressions). The news reference volume is therefore not really accurate...

Besides, the fact that people looking for "objet" mostly (more than 90% ?) come from France, Tunisia, Morocco, Belgium... which are all French speaking countries, is highly suspicious : I don"t think google makes any difference between the word and the company in the "search volume index".

[Felix]

I think this link is much nearer to reality :
Google trends