[Bf-marketing] Blender growth in Denmark - steadily and surely.

[Tommy Helgevold]

Hi fellow marketeers ;)

I just wanted to inform you about an observation I´ve made
in the Danish Blender user forums the last past 2 years.

It´s normal for most new 3d users to have a certain fallout/falloff rate where
some of them simply "give up learning 3d" because 3d is too hard for them
or they just didnt catch the interest in learning our trade.

Well... 

For 2-3 years ago I requested a forum for Blender users in the Danish well
known and established 3d-site for 3Dstudio max users because of all the
"newbies" that wanted to play with 3d for free. Since I also went from 
3dstudio max to Blender - I´ve maintained that forum and even written Danish
user guides to Blender. This have had a certain success rate I think is worth 
some observation.

I´ve noticed in the forums that people who had tried Cinema 4D, 3dstudio Max,
XSI and MAYA often went over to the "other-side" and landed on one of the 
the 4 well known programs of their choice - and the switching where pretty 
often and consistent.

BUT...

With the Blender users the story was quite different:

Most new Blender users to the forum - stayed with Blender all the way, yes - 
some of these users have been with us since the start of the Danish Blender 
forum and new users are coming around all the time. It´s also noteworthy that
there are in fact more registered Blender users than Maya users now in 
Denmark,
not only did that show up in a recent Poll made in the forums - but also 
noticeable when one observes the number of forum messages in there.
Max is still the "forum-leader" but Blender now has 12 % coverage and is
the SECOND largest user-3d-activity in Denmark.

The forums: www.3dmaxer.dk (Danish language)
my "now-old" Guide: http://www.hamsterking.com/blender/blender.htm (also in 
Danish)

So what can we learn from this?

- Blender users stay with Blender
- Other 3d Platform users switches a lot (not happy?)
- Blender newbies learn faster than initially though, especially those new to 
3d!
- Blender users develop 3d skills and finds "other ways" easier than
those with abundance of tools?

Anyway - I just though I´d write a little about this observation.

Happy new year,
Tommy Helgevold
(Aka JoOngle)