I case you missed the news late last week, O’Reilly Media made an important announcement: Maker Media, Inc. has been spun off as its own company. All parties involved are thrilled by this evolution of our business.

You can read Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty’s O’Reilly Radar piece here: Why We Spun out Maker Media.

Dale: “While MAKE started out with geek hobbyists, the audience now includes families who look for fun, educational projects to do together. It also includes makers who are developing new products and services for other makers and other audiences. It includes professional engineers and industrial designers. Makers have become entrepreneurs, sometimes accidentally, by discovering there’s a market for what they do. They build components and kits, and sell them in Maker Shed, and many other places. They create tools such as 3D printers and CNC machines and microcontrollers. Makers have created a new market ecosystem.”

Tim: “…We decided it was time to create Maker Media as a standalone vehicle to ride this new wave of innovation. Dale Dougherty, my partner from the early days of O’Reilly, and the creator of both MAKE magazine and Maker Faire, was the one who recognized this wave coming, and has nurtured it for the last seven years. Now, he has a platform to continue his work and take it to the next level.”

Forbes also did a piece on the spin out, which you can read here.

“This is truly an exciting time for us. The transition from a division to a separate company allows us to expand the ways we connect a growing community of makers who share a mindset that they can change the world around them,” said Dale Dougherty, CEO and president of Maker Media. “Makers are eager to share projects and share their expertise with the community, and we want to become the platform to enable and nurture this spirit.”

We will continue to be headquartered on the O’Reilly campus in Sebastopol, CA. All of the O’Reilly employees who worked for MAKE have been brought over as Maker Media employees. We’re all looking forward to this new chapter in the MAKE story.

[Photo by David Mellis]