I visited Etsy.com's headquarters last year for a party in Brooklyn, Handmade Music night at Etsy.com and Make.com Party in Brooklyn, not far from Junior's - a resturant I have gone to frequently over the years.  I also wrote a post about how to rank well  in Etsy.com shortly after (What does it take to rank well on Etsy.com?); but since then, I haven't had much contact with Etsy.

Tonight, I read Etsy Raises $27 Million; Accel’s Jim Breyer Joins Board on TechCrunch and noticed ComScore's traffic chart of Unique Visitors over the last  year or so:

The chart goes nicely with a similar one that I can get for free from Compete.com

 Both charts show steady growth, but I'd tend to go with the Compete.com chart over ComScore as it pulls data from actual internet traffic vs. ComScore's panals.

Anyway, I'm glad they're getting more funding and hanging out at Etsy.com is fun - I should try to go over there more often - I've certainly been meaning to. 

I spoke to a couple of people at the Etsy / Make Event tonight and found out what it takes to do well on Etsy.com.  Well, the main part of ranking well on Etsy.com is posting work often and taking part in Etsy's community.

Etsy.com has about 250,000 members, but not everyone sells, some register to buy things that others make, but don't sell anything themselves.   I think Vanessa Bertozzi said there's 40,000 stores, but I'm not sure I got the number right.

Most of the sales on Etsy.com are to other member of Etsy.com, it's actually functioning as a  community and it's own economy.  Members who live in New York City can pay 20 dollars a month for usage of space at Etsy's offices to create things on location - there's room to make devices, paintings, pretty much you name it.  It's a wonderful space with great vibes.  I think Etsy.com has been located on Gold Street since last October and many of the members who now work for the company, started as community members of Etsy.com.

I had actually thought that Etsy.com was located in Union Square - but that's just the location of one of their investors.  Until last October, Matthew Stinchcomb and his wife operated the business out of their apartment in Brooklyn.  Matt and his wife are really nice, sweet and smart people - and everything about etsy.com feels right.

In fact, the weird thing was the Etsy / Make space in Gold Street feels as if it's in the Bay Area to me - but in reality, many people feel the real creative center is back in New York City, and very strong, particularly in Brooklyn.  Ha!  So, all of a sudden, New York is where it's at (where it was always at, as far as I'm concerned) and the Bay Area is not seen as a particularly good place for the Arts.

But getting back to Etsy.com ranking algorithms:

1. frequent posting of work (your position gets degraded the less you put new work up)

2. frequent community posting, Forum posting, overall community participation makes a big, big difference on how well your work is seen.

3. Properly tagging your content helps a lot too, but it won't mean squat without the other two points (1 and 2).

I think, Vanessa mentioned that relationships between other members of the Etsy.com community helps a great deal - I felt a lot of the ranking really is how much you put into Etsy.com network.

Here's a list of upcoming classes you can take at Etsy's Gold Street location.

The party/event I attended tonight at Etsy.com and Make.com headquarters in New York (Brooklyn) - I did not know about it before hand - and were it not for an email from Eric Singer of LEMUR, I'd have missed it.  Among those who attended was Nick Denton of Gawker.com who I spoke with briefly.  Also had a very good conversation with Nathanial Freitas of www.Cruxy.com  (I'll do a whole post on Cruxy.com soon enough).

I also found out about Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference here in New York City next week and immediately applied for a Press Pass for that (we'll see if I get one); the other challenge might be to have the time to go to it.  Fortunately, there's also a Metaverse Meetup  taking place next Friday night, March 30th, in the East Village - and I'll be going to that meetup (now that I know about it) - thanks to  Nathanial for telling me about it.  What's also great - www.ElectricSheepCompany.com, who are developing a Web Metrics Package for Second Life, will be at the meetup and is sponsoring Virtual worlds 2007 Conference.

But perhaps, for me, the biggest issue I have is getting executive buy in for me attending all these conferences - which - in a way, makes perfect sense that I should attend.   If I'm able to obtain a press pass to Virtual Worlds 2007 you can be sure I'll be blogging live from it - and taking some video at this one too.

Here's some pictures from tonight's party at Etsy.com and Make.com's digs in downtown Brooklyn:

I took several pictures of Etsy's offices but did not like how they came out - my camara does not do a good job in low light situations.  

I also spoke with Matthew Stinchcomb who started Etsy.com with his wife in their Brooklyn Apartment - and now they have this wonderful space in Brooklyn - that people can come to and work at making things during the day.  I'll write a post about that too. 

Also had a nice conversation with Vanessa Bertozzi who works at Etsy.com; found out from Vanessa what it takes to rank well on Etsy.com and I'll talk about that in another post soon.   Vanessa Bertozzi and Hanna Shell made a movie they're selling on Etsy.com called SECONDHAND - the URL is www.secondhandfilm.com.

I'll cover more about this meeting in a couple of other posts here and at www.Artnewyorkcity.com.

The energy and people were really, really nice.

I think this person had created a musical instrument from a hot iron.  There was alot of stuff like that going on tonight.   I also spoke again to Phillip Torrone, Senior Editor at Make.com - I met Philip two months ago at the LEMURPlex and wrote about it here and on www.ArtNewYorkCity.com.