The news is now public, Maker Media halts operations and lays off staff.

Limor (ladyada) and I will talk about the Maker Media news this week on ASK AN ENGINEER at 8pm on Wednesday, June 12th (YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn, Mixer, Discord). For the folks who have emailed us asking if Adafruit could/would purchase parts-of and/or all-of MAKE in some manner, we did make multiple offers recently as well as in the past 2 years as we learned about the financial challenges MAKE was having. The most recent offer was a few weeks ago but we have not heard back from the company managing the sale of the assets. From what we understand, MAKE will go through an insolvency process, the assets of the company will be managed by an accounting firm and can be transferred to a new entity that purchases them.

Additionally, Limor and I had donated to archive.org for the specific goal of having an archive of all the posts that have cataloged many of the stories of makers and the community. I have / had 14,000+ posts on MAKE from the first post(s) in 2005 to guest posts at late as 2017. I was Senior Editor from 2005 to about 2010-ish and managed the MakerShed, the online site, video, and a bunch of other stuff in the early days. Worth mentioning, Adafruit is hiring, right now we’re looking for PHP developers, and as always online guide writers, EEs, and video creators.

Demand for Computer Science, engineering, electronics, and people who can make the tools for building the future has never been more in demand and will continue so. An event and print publication resetting (or going out of business) is an indicator of great opportunities for those who can provide what the community and market wants in a format they need, with business models that work for 2019 and beyond.

Please feel free to join our Discord community and share your Maker Faire stories together – https://adafru.it/discord

Financial troubles have forced Maker Media, the company behind crafting publication MAKE: magazine as well as the science and art festival Maker Faire, to lay off its entire staff of 22 and pause all operations.

…

1.45 million people attended its events in 2016. MAKE: magazine had 125,000 paid subscribers and the company had racked up over one million YouTube subscribers. But high production costs in expensive cities and a proliferation of free DIY project content online had strained Maker Media.

“Print publishing is not a great business for anybody, but it works…barely,” ”Events are hard . . . there was a drop off in corporate sponsorship.”

Maker Faire halts operations and lays off all staff – TechCrunch.

We’ll update this post as more articles are posted, and we’ll see you think week on the weekly shows, online chats, and more.

Update: 7/25/2019.

Here is the url that is on the notice being sent out to folks who maker media owes money to:
https://www.fileaclaim.info/makermedia-abc/

Here is what an abc is…
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-jan-03-la-fi-smallbiz-abc-20110103-story.html

PDFs for folks who are owed money:
https://www.fileaclaim.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Maker-Media-ABC-Creditors-Notice_RN.pdf
https://www.fileaclaim.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/MakerMedia_ABC_GA_FaC.pdf

Related

• MAKER MEDIA CEASES OPERATIONS – Hackaday.
• The End of Make: What Does That Mean for Us? By Shawn Hymel, LinkedIn
• The Faustian Bargain of the Maker by Alasdair Allan, Medium.
• Company behind Maker Faire, Make magazine shuts down – Silicon Valley Business Journal.
• The company behind Maker Faire and Make magazine has abruptly shut down – The Verge.
• Maker Faire, Make magazine shut down – CNET.
• Chris Anderson (former Wired Editor in chief, now CEO of 3D Robotics) – Twitter.
• Tweet by Adam Savage – Twitter.
• Tweet by Palmer Lucky, looking to purchase/help MAKE? – Twitter.
• Jason Scott, Archive.org reports that the site(s) from MAKE will be archived – Twitter.
• Photos from Bay Area Maker Faire 2006 onward – Ben Krasnow.
• Looking back at Maker Faire – EMSL.
• REGARDING THE CEASE OF MAKER MEDIA’S OPERATIONS – Seeed.
• Maker Media Has Shut Down. But Founder Dale Dougherty Isn’t Calling It Quits – EdSurge.
• The End of an Era – Sparkfun.
• Staying Too Long at the Faire – EE Journal.
• What We Lose If We Lose Maker Faire – EE Journal.
• We Make the Future We Invest In – Feld Thoughts.

Previous:

• Maker Faire in San Mateo could be Bay Area’s last – SFChronicle.