Fascinating article in Fortune -- The Amazing Rise of the Do-It-Yourself Economy -- says current technology empowers amateur tinkerers in ways that were just not possible not so very long ago, breaking down the user/maker divide. Featuring this quote from Eric von Hippel:

"What’s happened is a tremendous change in awareness," says Eric von Hippel... "Conventional wisdom is so strong [in business] about find-a-need-and-fill-it: ‘We’re the manufacturers; we design products; we ask users what they need; we do it.’ That has begun to crack."

People have always invented things. But, the article points out, now there are blogs where inventors can solicit real-time feedback on their designs and plans, and web-fueled hookups between basement inventors and Chinese factories that will manufacture their products. Even Microsoft is getting in on this market with Visual Studio Express ("designed to bring coding to the masses").

Also cited in the article -- new Make magazine, which has a very cool blog that reads like a rolling catalog of project ideas, project successes, and odd combos such as bracelets made of sterling silver and beer cans, and a real, playable harpsichord made of Legos. Make just launched as a quarterly and was expected to garner about 10,000 subs. After four months it has 25,000.

Amateurs are mostly inventing for the love of it -- says one in the Fortune article, ""My main goal is not to lose my house....You put it on the line and you want to be rewarded. But when it comes down to it, I just don’t want to go broke."

Some amateurs may not have big-time economic aspirations, but good ideas executed well have a way of coming to the attention of people/companies who do. I predict that it won't be long before savvy companies will start hanging round the Make blog and other such sources, looking for the next big thing or inspiration that might lead them to it.

So where are the blogs that cover amateur tinkering, or blogs by amateur tinkerers? Send me links if you know of any. I'm enthusiastic about this distributed-creativity trend, and I'll make a list and post it.