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3D Printing: The Trends? « Fabbaloo

3D Printing: The Trends?

By on February 21st, 2010 in Ideas

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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

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!

8 comments

  1. 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 identifiĆ©" (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".

  2. 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 identifiĆ©" (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".

  3. << 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

  4. << 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

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

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