Just found Shapeways about a month ago (via a mention in instructables.com article)., and have been browsing & lurking to learn more since.
My background is nothing special: I'm not a designer or a graphic artist or a CG artist, just a bloke who likes to build models for a hobby. Shapeways interests me because it would allow me to more easily create custom or corrected parts.
Rapid prototyping is becoming more common for that sort of thing, but the thing that's attracted me to Shapeways over other services is the accessibility. As far as I've seen Shapeways is the fist to adopt such a public-friendly business model. Most other RP services operate on an individual job quote basis, but with Shapeways I can estimate how much a part will cost myself while it's still vaporware. That is a HUGE advantage for a customer. An upload scheme similar to that of a photo hosting site and a forum where customers and company reps can interact on a casual level are similarly huge.
I guess what I'm tying to say is that IMO a good web based business is more than just a brochure with an email address. Otherwise it's just a glorified form of old school magazine ad mail order. Shapeways is the first RP firm to realize that, and IMO they should be rewarded for it.
I've been working on a couple bits in Sketchup, and hopefully will have something printable & ordered within a month or so. Eventually I'll probably switch to Blender or Wings3D: Sketchup is very intuitive, but not always very efficient (of course some of that may be lack of know-how on my part
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