Exposing Thangs.com | Deep Dive Interview With Thangs

[@some_random_wallaby]

Well, I had a use for the geometric search today. I wanted to print one of those speed squares, but wanted one smaller with more frequent notches. So I took the model I liked and uploaded it for searching. Unfortunately, no one had made any smaller variation... but I did find remixes that weren't linked on thingiverse and a number of other designs (inferior ones :P). It did give me a degree of confidence that what I was looking for didn't (yet) exist.

[@CrudelyMade]

for features.. would love to see the ability to turn features on and off. like in cura and prusa slicers, I can select basic/int/adv features exposed, or make my own mix.

[@McRootbeer]

Great interview, thanks for the timestamps 👍

[@D3rron08]

Can you do a summary video of this in the future?

[@Keep-Making]

Absolutely! The most watched parts of this interview I'll be making snippets out of plus I'll make an overview summary video like your asking.

[@keithkoster273]

I did a drinking game for every "That's a good question" and "I love this question"....I don't remember my name or why I'm here now.

[@Alex-bv5se]

"There is two answers to that question 🥸" ! 😂😂😂

[@bringtheideas460]

Woooooow, that is INSANELY usefull!

[@zramirez5471]

I like the (CTO? Is that what he called himself?) He's obviously well-suited to his role but also very upfront relative to the kind of smarmy/slimy types at Newegg from the Gamers Nexus videos. Sounds like Thangs is somewhere between the "first hit is free" kind of product and kind of a rollout/testing ground for developing commercial products similar in a sense to what Redhat does with CentOS - more for testing the smaller modules of a larger software or testing/demonstrating the marketability or desirability for certain tools for potential investors

[@-robo-]

Thangs has potential IMHO, but Thingiverse still is my go to. If anything, Thangs needs to relax their restrictions and promote their services more. Honestly, I haven't thought about Thangs at all for about six months. If not for your video, who knows how long it would have been. In any case, thang-k-s!

[@DennDem1]

Love the feedback, which restrictions? As close as we can tell, we are one of the most open/permissive platforms right now. But we are likely missing something and would love to learn how we can do better.

[@lalilaloe]

Still like thingiverse for what it is, the discover page and also has parametric customizer. Thangs has it's own benefits but is not on the same level on content and interactions

[@gediba]

"I love this question" = "I'd like to have you jailed"

[@DennDem1]

Ha! No, I actually did like that question. Each of them gives me an opportunity to provide an honest answer. If that answer isn't great, it's at least honest - and highlights opportunities for us to improve. We honestly believe feedback is a gift. Disclaimer: I'm the guy in the interview.

[@TheRainHarvester]

Being the "Google" of 3d is not desirable. Will ads be printed on the infill? LOL😄

[@DennDem1]

No ads on infill 😉, promise. The Google comparison is coarse, at best - but it does relate to our goal to be one place where you can search to find all things 3D. We also like the idea of helping the other platforms grow, so we never charge for placement or rank our own models above any other platform. Our view on that has been that if we want Thangs user models to rank higher, we need to build a valuable enough product that creators share on Thangs - and therefore more models that people want are hosted there. We are fortunate in that Thangs user model uploads are up well over 20x per week over the past year. We are now into the tens of thousands per week. That doesn't mean we have succeeded, but we are humbly, mostly quietly, making a lot of progress. We aren't there yet, but we will get there eventually.

[@Hun73rdk]

I can say they have started to ban certain words in the search field if you use those words. It will give you an error saying "Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information)."

[@Keep-Making]

What type of words I'm interested?

[@Hun73rdk]

@@Keep-Making i can pm you on discord if you want dont want to write them here youtube is weird that way

[@DennDem1]

@@Hun73rdk You have found a bug, I believe. Or an update that I'm not aware of. DM me on Twitter or tell me how to reach you, I'd love to figure out what is causing that. AFAIK, we don't have a list of banned words - but we do respond to people making threats of physical violence towards others in community reported comments.. but that is the only context of words being an issue (threatening others, being egregious). I'm checking with my team to see if there is anything in search that could be responsible for this. As a matter of principle, we try to avoid things like 'banned word' lists because they are generally subjective.

[@Hun73rdk]

@@DennDem1 you can find me on your site with same username you can probably see my email there. I dont have twitter anymore so and not facebook either

[@DennDem1]

@@Hun73rdk We don't allow anyone, including myself, to access user data; but, if your open to me doing so.. I'll pull it up and shoot you a note. We tested nearly two dozen NSFW search terms, just now, and all of them worked fine.