It took a lot of will power for me not to name this post "Ravelry Wanna-bes". The fact is that Ravely does an excellent job at providing social outlets for knitters. It was one of the first in the marketplace and its wild popularity makes it difficult for anybody to create a similar venture without being subject to comparison. The fact is that there are two new operations that strive to be the "facebooks of knitting", a term that has already been used to describe Ravelry.

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Ravelry is Number One

The one question I have is what would encourage someone to get into such a competitive industry? Most businesses are started with the idea of "how can I fix someone's pain?". So I'm wondering  whether there are some people who are unhappy with Ravelry? You rarely hear a bad word about the service and I myself haven't had any problems. I believe their software works exceptionally well. That is, if you have the time to document all of your yarn, notions and projects. Their forums are well-moderated and their pattern search and support is unbeatable. It is a valuable resource that I hope lasts a long time.

However not everyone is happy:

There Are Some Unhappy Campers:

Here's a link to Ravelry's response.

Ravelry Competitors

But whatabout the new kids on the block? Who are they? What do they do well? Should Ravelry be scared?

Knitting Network

First off there's Knitting Network, which appears to be from Europe. Most of their supporters and advertisers are in the UK (that and they spell center "centre"). That is a plus in my book in that many of the knitting sites are North America Centric. It's nice seeing someone from the other side of the pond dipping their toe in the market. That could be a boon to European knitters.

Graphically, the site is a bit flat. Functionally, it's a bit clunky. The profiles do not allow you to track your projects or stash, but the forum seems to work ok and you can upload and share videos. Also it seems they have a shop, but it looks like it's an affiliated shop that pulls from other online stores. As a North American knitter I enjoy the fact that this online shop has products that aren't typically available here, however with the Euro you're going to have to pay for it -at least an extra 25% plus shipping. Another plus is that Knitting Network provides you with blog software so that you can create your own blog. They also provide a single section of their site with feeds of all of their associated blogs.

If Knitting Network is serious about competing with Ravelry, they're going to have to pretty-up their site. Before Facebook there was MySpace and Friendster. People have moved to new social networks as they have improved in appearance, technology and functionality. At this point, I believe that Knitting Network fits more of the MySpace look and feel and they will have to overcome that association to become more competitive.  I hope they succeed because the universe thrives on competition and variety. Knitting Network has put together a promising set of tools and I will be keeping an eye on them to see how they progress.

Bottom Line: Knitting Network is an excellent resource to see what's going on in Europe, but they will have to find some dynamic ways to improve the look and feel of their site to draw in more visitors.

Knitideas.com

Knitideas.com from the outside looks like a blog with a knitting community. Knitideas has put more thought into their site's look and feel. The soft pastel colors of the site speak more clearly to knitters who usually have a strong proclivity towards colors and textures. My only piccadillo is that they use Comic Sans as a font. That said, they do have a much better graphically pleasing way of welcoming you to the site when you sign up.

I also like that when I enter the Knitideas site they provide me with a ton of interesting content. One of my few piccadillos about Ravelry is that their home page is pretty sparse with content. You kind of have to find stuff yourself. I would love it if Ravelry included links to new stuff instead of news about Ravelry, or their newsletter. That said, Ravelry's content is awesome so it balances itself out that way. But weren't we talking about Knitideas?

There's a lot of fun stuff to play with, however there aren't so many users to play with at this time. I mean, there are plenty of users who sign up. However if you visit the forum, or the notes the community isn't really providing anything. KnitIdeas needs to do more to engage the community. Provide interesting topics to discuss, produce knitting patterns.

Bottom Line: Knitideas is more aesthetically pleasing and has a better way of drawing in new members but needs to do more to encourage member-driven content.

Cafe Crochet

Not to neglect our crocheting compatriots, it turns out that there's one more online knitting social network called Cafe Crochet. Upon my first glance, it looks well designed, however there's nothing that looks like crochet on the site. The header image is this awesome graphical bronze that alludes to crochet. While this sets it apart from other fiber-related sites it doesn't really say anything about crochet.

Furthermore, this is a ning site, which is basically like blogger for social networks. You can create your own social network using ning. This means that this site is relatively limited in it's offerings. But still it functions well.

That said, it's still the only social networking site with a focus on Crochet and it's a brand new site so there's plenty of room for growth. I'm interested to see where it goes.

Bottom Line: Crocheters should give this a try.