Ravelry: Facebook for Fiber People

My Ravelry Page

Ravelry is a social networking site for all things fibery. It is huge (well over 4 million members) and very popular -- according to Alexa, it's rank in the United States is 1935. Basically, if you play with yarn and you are online, you have probably interacted with Ravelry.

Jess and Casey Forbes began the website in 2007 as a way for knitters and crocheters to come together to discuss yarn, patterns and tools. Simple enough, but they have made the website in such a way that when you add a project you can link up the pattern and yarn so when other users look at the the pages for these things they can see what Ravelry users are doing with them.

The website includes discussion forums as well as groups, which allow members gather to discuss topics of any kind (for example, a search for "Doctor Who" turns up 43 groups, some of which have thousands of members). Businesses, such as Interweave Knits, create these groups to allow for interaction with their customers.

Ravelry has been an important venue for selling patterns, both for the newbie and for well established designers. They take a cut, but a comparatively small one (about 2% of the selling price). Many designers release e-books through Ravelry (either exclusively or in addition to the print book).

While Ravelry is free to the users, it is a for profit company. Their revenue comes from advertising, merchandise, pattern sales, and a few other sources. They are very open about the ways they make money, which creates a sense of trust with their users, advertisers and vendors.

Social networking for knitters might seem like a silly thing, but fiber crafts is a very big industry and Ravelry has become a vital tool for the customers of that industry.