3D printing

There has been a lot of hype on 3D printers at last year CES and now this year I saw tons of competitors offering low-end models as well as high-end professional desktops. XYZprinting Inc. from Taiwan, a new entrant revealed their da Vinci 3D printer with a starting price of just $499, which costs as much as a color laser printer did a few years back. It is a simple plug-and-play design for small business and personal use.

It's not easy to determine which trends and movements are worth paying attention to. We live in an age where technology seems to move at pace that's impossible to keep up with. I spend a lot of my time dealing with global brands who are looking to scale and integrate social as part of their core marketing—and in some cases business strategies, and I can tell you first hand that these organizations have their work cut out for them as we are now in the trenches of operationalizing the disruptions caused by digital's latest iteration.

The 3D printing movement just kicked into a higher gear last week with the launch of a wildly successful Kickstarter project – the 3Doodler - that promises to create the world's first 3D printing pen.

Image: The 3Doodler

If I’d asked customers what they want, they’d have said more convenience and relevance.

Look familiar? I’ve riffed on that Henry Ford quote about faster horses, yada, yada. It’s not too far off from what customers would theoretically have been seeking in faster horses.

Now that Apple appears to be losing its innovation mojo, it's time to ask: Is there any company that can ever become the “next Apple”?

I wrote about Enrico Dini a couple of years ago. Enrico has developed a 3D printing technology large enough to print buildings. Yes, buildings. It uses sand combined with an inorganic binder to print structures in stone with no human intervention. Constructions which are strong, cheap, environmentally-friendly, and rather amazing.

About a month ago I was asked to supply an article for the Ukrainian «Business» magazine. In a short essay I had to reflect on the obscure topics of the Future of Marketing. Would there be brands in 2031? What instruments CMO’s would have at that time? And aren’t we all supposed to be dead in December 2012 how different will the consumer be? This is when I realized that I haven’t written anything like this for a while. The future that I was predicting in Top Ten Trends in Marketing Innovation was about to happen now. However, 2031 was still a longer shot, so I gathered that I can let my imagination fly free.

If you think the copyright wars over SOPA and PIPA that resulted in the Wikipedia Blackout were contentious, wait until you see what happens when the debate over copyright is extended beyond music, film, video games and books and into the realm of physical objects like sneakers and toys.

Not science fiction anymore, this: "Once chairs and other things become content, the prospect of rampant chair piracy turns from unimaginable into very real." The Pirate Bay is opening a new category for the new kind of piratable stuff: "We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles.

by: C. Sven Johnson

Here’s a quick note to call attention to something that might be of interest: Another avatar fabbing outfit has set up shop. Most of you are probably already aware of Fabjectory, the service that’s been “3D printing” Second Life avatars and objects for the last year or so. Well now there’s a service available for fabbing World of Warcraft game characters.