Threadless t-shirt news: Announcing... Twitter Tees By Threadless!

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May 19 '09 by Threadless

171 Comments

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Announcing... Twitter Tees By Threadless!

5.19.09 IMMEDIATE RELEASE: @Threadless to crowdsource #TwitterTees. @Biz says "Awesome!" http://thrdl.es/~/R

TheInfamousBaka on May 19 '09 at 10:19am

That's pretty neat! What a nerd fest. Ahahaha.

Maltzmania on May 19 '09 at 10:19am

i still don't get twitter, but the shirts look cool!

Stoma on May 19 '09 at 10:25am

If every T is about twitter, won't this get old fast?

valorandvellum on May 19 '09 at 10:27am

Crazy!

martiandrivein on May 19 '09 at 10:27am

this is wacky.

boysbeambitious on May 19 '09 at 10:29am

huh, interesting!

xiv on May 19 '09 at 10:29am

Stoma on May 19 '09 at 10:25am
If every T is about twitter, won't this get old fast?

yes but im sure plenty of profit will be made.

SuperRyan on May 19 '09 at 10:30am

Not a bad business move

:^)

ivejustquitsmoking on May 19 '09 at 10:32am

crazy :)

upso on May 19 '09 at 10:33am

every T wont be about twitter
just awesome phrases posted via twitter. :)

sonmi on May 19 '09 at 10:33am

crazy tweetonians

lunchboxbrain on May 19 '09 at 10:37am

sweet!

Stoma on May 19 '09 at 10:57am

I have a twitter T nomination:

i want. a beer.

10:52 PM May 18 by @jublin

Everybody nominate this one! Threadless community powers activate!

FRICKINAWESOME on May 19 '09 at 11:05am

So what will be the difference between non-Twitter related printed tees and type tees? Will they get 140 characters instead of 65 to work with?

SuperRyan on May 19 '09 at 11:10am

The 1st voter wins a prize too?!?!

:^o

jillustration on May 19 '09 at 11:11am

I think threadless does so well because they're ahead of the curve on every kind of new technology and they've always been innovative. I am not much of a twitter user myself but I do think this is a good example of threadless being way ahead of the game and tapping into a thriving community. Kinda cool!

squatterjohn on May 19 '09 at 11:14am

I like your ridiculously short new url.

westicles on May 19 '09 at 11:24am

I just read the word tweet about a hundred times.

rodrigobhz on May 19 '09 at 11:24am

So, you need to get nominated to get your tweet up for voting? How does it works? I'm a twitter nooooooob

staffell on May 19 '09 at 11:26am

this is too much for me :/

Torakamikaze on May 19 '09 at 11:26am

i dun geddit.

nathanwpyle at gmail.com on May 19 '09 at 11:27am

I just joined!

Let's be friends(?) followers(?)

nathanwpyle

rodrigobhz on May 19 '09 at 11:30am

Following nathan! :)

rodrigobhz on May 19 '09 at 11:31am

rodrigobh

nathanwpyle at gmail.com on May 19 '09 at 11:33am

*follows rodrigobh*

woo!

ISABOA on May 19 '09 at 11:34am

does this have anything to do with rancor, billy zane or gog?

wearecareful on May 19 '09 at 11:34am

Let's be friends!

wearecareful

SuperRyan on May 19 '09 at 11:35am

Username SuperRyan taken

Fuck

skaw on May 19 '09 at 11:38am

Twitter is hilarious.
- @skaw

nathanwpyle at gmail.com on May 19 '09 at 11:39am

*follows wearecareful*

I'm following! I follow! I'm a follower!

psherman42 on May 19 '09 at 11:40am

so why are those $18 but typetees are $15? Is twitter taking a $3 cut on each tee sold?

Torakamikaze on May 19 '09 at 11:41am

random tweets i made were nominated for some reason

*tilts head*

i guess id wear a shirt that says Im drinking Fresca

*tilts head more*

nikolina100 on May 19 '09 at 11:42am

Sadly, after browsing thru all my tweets to find one to submit I realized.....I'm a boring tweeter!

TimScribble on May 19 '09 at 11:43am

So I just submitted this one.

All that Twitters is told.

fatheed on May 19 '09 at 11:50am

The slogan is dead. Long live the Twitter.

andyg on May 19 '09 at 11:50am

I love Threadless... but I hate, hate, hate this idea.

tracerbullet on May 19 '09 at 11:51am

my mind exploded with so many uses of the word twitter and its variations in that press release

Steve The Great on May 19 '09 at 11:56am

*Does not approve*

not that I really care.

jublin on May 19 '09 at 12:36pm

120 is the new 420?!?!?!??!!!

jublin on May 19 '09 at 12:40pm

"that's what tweet said"

heyo!

jublin on May 19 '09 at 12:43pm

I have a twitter T nomination:

i want. a beer.

10:52 PM May 18 by @jublin

haha what the! you're just trying to make a quick buck off of my dismay!

rbthatcher on May 19 '09 at 12:43pm

I just gave it a shot...we'll see how it works out!

mgill52 on May 19 '09 at 12:45pm

I agree with andyg i think

schleb on May 19 '09 at 12:54pm

I got a Twitter for you, Threadless!

Oh, the things I do for you...

Tweet Tweet

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 12:55pm

I just got the email...I'm so confused. Worlds are colliding.

ethanator on May 19 '09 at 12:57pm

This looks great, except that Airbag Industries, the design firm, just did this, like less then 15 days ago. In a very similar way! Threadless did you see this before?

http://twitshirt.com/

schleb on May 19 '09 at 1:06pm

But Threadless shirts are purdy.

rbthatcher on May 19 '09 at 1:08pm

I'll follow you Nathan!

mine's the same as here:

rbthatcher

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 1:09pm

Yeah - I too am confused why these are different than type tees? What's stopping people from just submitting all their slogans as tweets? mind is hurting :/

ettiny on May 19 '09 at 1:10pm

Pretty cool.

asfi235 on May 19 '09 at 1:15pm

I love Threadless... but I hate, hate, hate this idea.

On the basis of the four shirts released so far, I'm totally with you on this.

Look at the legacy of the "Loves" competitions and generally you'll see a commonality: awesome design comes first, and the thing being "Loved" comes second, if it's apparent at all.

Now we've got a bunch of third-party branded sloganwear which do a great job of promoting Twitter but are meh in every other respect.

Hey Threadless, has the Economic Downturn really made you this desperate?

Kookaberry on May 19 '09 at 1:16pm

I read that press release and I think it's in robot language. I don't get what is happening.

littlem on May 19 '09 at 1:18pm

hahahaha andyg

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 1:18pm

I think I know what's going on....robots have taken over the world PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

mezo on May 19 '09 at 1:19pm

I do not understand this and I will not acknowledge it.

Kookaberry on May 19 '09 at 1:19pm

@Threadless to crowdsource #TwitterTees. @Biz says "Awesome!" http://thrdl.es/~/R Please RT!

seriously is this English?

stothemofob on May 19 '09 at 1:24pm

jumping the shark?

schleb on May 19 '09 at 1:26pm

HELP I DON'T GET IT

Torakamikaze on May 19 '09 at 1:29pm

im gonna hop on pop with andyg on this one

(that means agree in seussical)

mgill52 on May 19 '09 at 1:29pm

Threadless, could we get an explanation of why this is happening?

SuperRyan on May 19 '09 at 1:36pm

I assume they're trying to capitalize on Twitter's popularity

ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 1:43pm

Is Type Tees going away?..seems the same product with different submission method. From a business standpoint its a good way for threadless to tap into the twitter user base. Threadless knows what they are doing obviously, but in my opinion this would have been a much better "Loves" contest than product line.

fatheed on May 19 '09 at 2:01pm

stothemofob on May 19 '09 at 1:24pm
jumping the shark?

Krimson on May 19 '09 at 2:09pm

Hopefully this doesn't kill the slogan-world...

rossmat8 on May 19 '09 at 2:11pm

Yeah I don't want to be a member of the Official Twitter Club or the Twitter Shoguns

Krimson on May 19 '09 at 2:11pm

Also, wtf does 140 is the new 420 mean.. is it a pot reference?

brentendo on May 19 '09 at 2:13pm

andyg on May 19 '09 at 11:50am
I love Threadless... but I hate, hate, hate this idea.

agreed

SuperRyan on May 19 '09 at 2:16pm

I do believe that is a marijuana reference, Kevin

rossmat8 on May 19 '09 at 2:16pm

Yeah they're saying the 140 characters is more addictive than pot

Krimson on May 19 '09 at 2:19pm

Eh, this thing kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

Like when you eat something and then take a nap right away, and wake up with that terrible taste in your mouth.
It is like that.

mz. kat-ii on May 19 '09 at 2:19pm

andyg on May 19 '09 at 11:50am
I love Threadless... but I hate, hate, hate this idea.

asfi235 on May 19 '09 at 2:22pm

Yeah they're saying the 140 characters is more addictive than pot

I confess I've twittered a few times.....but I did not inhale.

ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 2:24pm

are they still making prints out of designs or did that go away?

Krimson on May 19 '09 at 2:26pm

ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 2:24pm
are they still making prints out of designs or did that go away?

Nah, Art isn't the "New Thing".

TheInfamousBaka on May 19 '09 at 2:29pm

I love Twitter, but I personally would never buy a shirt based off of someone else's Twitter quote.

pilihp on May 19 '09 at 2:32pm

i like twitter, but i haven't warmed up to this idea yet. i fear people will start tweeting random quotes just for a chance to get printed and i'll resort to unfollow people. i dunno.

nathanwpyle at gmail.com on May 19 '09 at 2:35pm

Threadless is just going to harvest more slogans from an exponentially bigger crowd.

I suspect that in the end, most of the Twitter Tees slogans printed up will be not be Twitter-related.

Regardless, it means more hits on Threadless, more hits on Twitter, and t shirts that advertise both.

Hard to blame Threadless for taking the plunge, IMO.

sonmi on May 19 '09 at 2:35pm

i like twitter too, but would never want a t-shirt about twitter.

so.. it won't all be about twitter, though? i'm confused. is this thing permanent?

courtney pie on May 19 '09 at 2:39pm

fatheed on May 19 '09 at 11:50am
The slogan is dead. Long live the Twitter.

*sad face with quivering lip*

thanks for 140 clarification!

jublin on May 19 '09 at 2:40pm

haha i bet that will probably happen phil.

to be honest, i was never really into the whole Slogan thing, but it made sense so i just ignore it. Same deal here. NBD. Doesn't have much of an impact on me in any way at all.

ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 2:41pm

maybe if they had released stronger shirts...i hope these aren't too representative.

brentendo on May 19 '09 at 2:43pm

i don't thin there will be a difference between slogan tees and twitter tees eventually, it just seems like a marketing tool atm and the twitter references are just a way of hooking twitterers into threadless territory. I'm going to be looking out for a buttload of blank avatars any time soon..

pilihp on May 19 '09 at 2:44pm

jublin on May 19 '09 at 2:40pm
Doesn't have much of an impact on me in any way at all.

wait till your twitter page is full of random quotes... but i guess that's what twitter is anyways, huh? i'll have to nap on this. brb.

ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 2:44pm

and the awesome "Nice design vote for my tweet" comments.

sonmi on May 19 '09 at 2:46pm

twitter tees are less about the threadless community than slogan tees :\

jublin on May 19 '09 at 2:49pm

but i guess that's what twitter is anyways, huh?

Black Steve Martin

brentendo on May 19 '09 at 2:50pm

ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 2:44pm
and the awesome "Nice design vote for my tweet" comments.

:'(

skaw on May 19 '09 at 3:24pm

Hey hey, thanks for all the comments! I thought I'd weigh in here with an official response to everyone's questions and to let you all know where our heads are at... Basically over the past few months we have blown up on Twitter. We have over 475k followers and there is a huge community there interested in what we have to say. We really wanted to do something special for them.

Twitter is it's own scene, there's a bit of crossover here but not everyone digs it and not everyone should! The site is very tied into Twitter, you need a Twitter account to participate, etc. This project is definitely more for Twitter users rather than the Threadless community, but wherever it crosses over that's great. If you do have a Twitter account, submit/nominate some tweets! Another way to earn some $$$ by participating.

This does not effect Threadless in any way, Threadless and TypeTees are their own communities and this does not change anything we are currently doing...

Also, these first 4 designs are Twitter related but that was just for launching this... we are going to start out doing 2 new Twitter Tees per week and starting next week the new designs will not be so Twitter related.

Anyway, we're pretty stoked to open up the whole community based tee creation process to other communities around the web and are anxious to see how this works out. Thanks for your feedback thus far!

krokun on May 19 '09 at 3:30pm

In the vein of Skaws explanation I dont mind. Probably wont be buying any shirts or participating but hey, why deny the populous another way of accessing t'less?

jublin on May 19 '09 at 3:38pm

Two new twitter tees a week
Two new selects a week
Two new type tees a week
Three new reprints a week
and STILL Six new tees a week?

is that for real? am i number crunching right? so many new tees!

skaw on May 19 '09 at 3:39pm

yep that's right. crazy!

phillydesigner on May 19 '09 at 3:43pm

:(

it's kinda sad that you stopped making new posters...

phillydesigner on May 19 '09 at 3:46pm

but applaud your diving into another community medium... of which i still haven't wrapped my head around... i've found twitter to be a quick way to stay informed or mildly entertained.. what makes it funny sometimes is how fleeting and random the tweets are... it's such a different medium when it get's printed on a shirt... i guess what makes tweets funny or appealing might be how out of context they are...

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 4:08pm

But those new tees will not be on the Threadless main site?

If I were to be printed as a twitterthreadlesser would it show up on my Threadless account?

FRICKINAWESOME on May 19 '09 at 4:08pm

I still want my question answered dammit!

So what will be the difference between non-Twitter related printed tees and type tees? Will they get 140 characters instead of 65 to work with?

courtney pie on May 19 '09 at 4:15pm

good question FA. good question.

skaw on May 19 '09 at 5:00pm

FA - the difference (other than character count) is tweets vs slogans ... tweets are more of a 'what are you doing' type of thing, so the content is a slightly different angle. the biggest difference is the audience though, just a different community participating.

skaw on May 19 '09 at 5:01pm

chengui - correct, these tees will not be on the threadless main site and will not be in your profile - the user accounts are completely separate.

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 5:02pm

cool - that's what it seemed like to me.

kevinwells on May 19 '09 at 5:11pm

to be blunt, this seems exceptionally redundant. you have now created two completely independent lines in which:
- users submit text-only phrases of a limited length
- users vote yes/no on phrases submitted by others
- the highest-voted ones are printed
- threadless' in-house team does all the type-setting and design work
- users get $500 if their phrase gets printed.

they are exactly the same other than the process by which you submit the phrases. if you wanted to modify the system so that people can submit slogans using their twitter accounts, then just do that. what on earth is the point of calling it a totally separate thing?

the other thing that seems really bizarre to me is that you're paying $140 to someone who nominates a tweet. you're paying someone money to submit someone else's work. doesn't that seem a little off to you? if i find someone else's really clever slogan out there, i don't get paid some finder's fee for submitting it as a slogan -- why should this be any different?

Andreas Mohacsy on May 19 '09 at 5:11pm

smells like a gold mine - congrats

kevinwells on May 19 '09 at 5:14pm

(i hope that didn't come across as jerkface-y. i hope everyone knows how much i

kevinwells on May 19 '09 at 5:18pm

... how much i hate when i forget that <'s eat up the rest of your comment :P that and how much i <3 threadless)

pats2fat on May 19 '09 at 5:20pm

not too fond of this..

staffell on May 19 '09 at 5:25pm

The problem I have with the system is that I don't believe "a twitter user" is any different from a regular users...

in other words just because they are following threadless on an (imo) pointless social networking site doesn't mean their tastes are different...especially with regards to the twitter tees.

staffell on May 19 '09 at 5:27pm

brentendo on May 19 '09 at 2:50pm
ndstillie on May 19 '09 at 2:44pm
and the awesome "Nice design vote for my tweet" comments.

:'(

lol

T-Lou on May 19 '09 at 5:33pm

User name TLou taken, wtf.
Whats Twitter in the morning anyway?
Yesterday's MySpace...

T-Lou on May 19 '09 at 5:33pm

I think I'll submit that! ;)

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 5:36pm

GGtee has Twitter tees now.

chelly on May 19 '09 at 5:36pm

this is interesting

ISABOA on May 19 '09 at 5:40pm

this will unleash a deluge of new users with money for shirts

YAY!

i am going to go and make a witty comment on a BBS about it

skaw on May 19 '09 at 5:41pm

kevinwells - re: the nomination thing - when you nominate you aren't submitting their work, you're just nudging them to submit it. it doesn't go up for scoring unless the person you've nominated accepts your nomination.

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 5:42pm

FRICKINAWESOME - what's your twitter account? I'm gonna nominate the crap out of you and win $$$$!

courtney pie on May 19 '09 at 5:46pm

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 5:42pm
FRICKINAWESOME - what's your twitter account? I'm gonna nominate the crap out of you and win $$$$!

then i call dibbs on maltz!

kevinwells on May 19 '09 at 5:47pm

ahh, thanks for the clarification on that. i still think it's pretty odd that you can get paid for that, though. i imagine people will just "nominate" everything they see just on the off chance the person accepts/wins. you'll get a bunch of people who just follow all the clever/witty people and nominate everything funny they say the moment they say it.

also, can multiple people nominate the same tweet?

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 5:48pm

fair enough.

skaw on May 19 '09 at 5:53pm

kevin - nope, just 1 nominator per tweet.

psherman42 on May 19 '09 at 5:54pm

are you going to change the twitter tees logo at the top of the page so that its grayed out if you aren't on it? I don't really like the clashy look of it right now. also, it only shows up on threadless, not when you're at typetees/select/kids.

stothemofob on May 19 '09 at 5:58pm

i've not been on here long enough to know, but has threadless done this kind of thing before? i just always assumed twitter would be a passing thing, but threadless seem to be really behind it.

if it creates good tees then fair enough i suppose, though for me, none of these four tees represent what i think threadless is about.

brentendo on May 19 '09 at 6:05pm

I'm actually quite interested to see what kind of tees come out of this line, because I've been thinking recently that alot of slogans submitted as of late aren't actually that wearable. They may be clever and witty with great puns etc however I might actually find myself more inclined to wear a tshirt that says "I'm dying for a slice of pizza"

brentendo on May 19 '09 at 6:13pm

ok I retract that statement after visiting the twitter tees voting page and seeing the horrifyingly bad list of 'tweets' that people had to offer for tshirt designs.

stubby43 on May 19 '09 at 6:21pm

I have very mixed feelings about this, my knee jerk reaction is to say its going to destroy the community I love but I've been around long enough to have experienced its going to destroy everything and find out it hasnt before.

I love twitter I think its awesome but I do kind of feel like your starting something new when you really should be concentrating on fixing the type tees section.

stubby43 on May 19 '09 at 6:38pm

p.s Twitter tee's is forgetting my votes, I've voted hell no on a couple of tweets, refreshed and there back.

staffell on May 19 '09 at 6:42pm

when you really should be concentrating on fixing the type tees section.

I'm pretty sure they're working on this anyway phil

staffell on May 19 '09 at 6:44pm

I'm a Milhouse in a world of Barts.

Indiana: the New Jersey of Illinois.

I watch porn for the credits.

Oh, Aunt Jemima. How you make oldey-time racism so delicious?

lol awesome

stubby43 on May 19 '09 at 6:45pm

true but it feels like that.

Truth be told I know theres another version of the site on the way but the release of twitter tee's means its probably going to be a few months before we see it.

staffell on May 19 '09 at 6:49pm

pessimism aside, I say good luck to threadless! I hope this generates a tonne more sales for you :)

pyko on May 19 '09 at 6:50pm

hm interesting - was rather confused and bit worried about slogans/typetees when i first saw this!!

but good to see you are making it different/distinct.

re the nominating...so does that mean say I nominate FA's tweet, he decides what the heck, i'll submit it...and sometime later it gets printed i get $140 and FA gets $500 ???

this shall be interesting....though one more way to have a stab at the money - i'm not complaining :)

skaw on May 19 '09 at 6:51pm

psherman42 - that will go away after a while, just for a week or two after we launch it. won't be up there at all after that.

stothemofob - yea who knows, based on how this goes we may end it after 6 months, it could be a long term, permanent thing...

skaw on May 19 '09 at 6:51pm

pyko - yea, that's how it works.

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 7:00pm

lol @ someone trying to nominate Threadless' own news tweet from yesterday.

Emurion on May 19 '09 at 7:03pm

I was wrong in the survey. Now I have no doubt that Threadless is a store.

Clever move, but I don't like it.

andyg on May 19 '09 at 7:10pm

If there really is a demand for Twitter-inspired t-shirts, I suppose people ought to be able to buy them somewhere. But why at Threadless? Why not do all this on Twitter's site?

People who want to wear shirts that say things like "I just ran out of orange juice" should just go straight to the place that's famous for meaningless, empty phrases. Plus, Threadless already has slogan tees. How many more slogan tees do we need? If the Threadless blogs become dominated by people begging for tweet votes, my days here will be numbered.

I understand that Threadless is a business and could potentially make a small fortune by combining forces with Twitter. I'm sure Threadless could rope in a lot of new visitors this way as well. But is it all really worth it? Threadless has always been a highly productive sanctuary from all the social networking nonsense out there. I feel like Twitter shirts will cheapen the great things that are already produced here. Does Threadless really want a bunch of people with nothing relevant or important to say suddenly deciding what makes a good design too? I think the less mainstream Threadless is, the better.

Threadless should continue to use Twitter as a tool to keep Twitterers (or whatever you call them) up to speed on what's new at Threadless. But keep the two sites separated.
Remember what happened when the Jetsons met the Flintstones? Me neither... But I'm pretty sure it was television poison. The point is: keep George Jetson out of Bedrock. He doesn't belong there.

nathanwpyle at gmail.com on May 19 '09 at 7:14pm

I think most of the winning slogans will ultimately not be directly Twitter related and yet also won't be neatly packaged cleverness like the Threadless slogans.

I have been surprised in the past at what people want written on their t-shirts.

For instance -CNN.com's T-Shirt store.
They've been offering T-shirts with any headline of your choice for the past year.

When I first saw it last year, I didn't think it would last.

Apparently it has survived though - with T-Shirts that read things like '1 in 3 workers hung over at the office.'

see CNN t shirt gallery here

Steelplate on May 19 '09 at 7:22pm

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but how exactly is this different to TypeTees? Could people essentially be clever and sneak their unsung slogans into thier Tweets in the hopes that they get chosen and printed?

andyg on May 19 '09 at 7:30pm

One more thing... even if I loved the phrase and design, I would never buy the shirt based on the fact that there's a Twitter logo printed on it.

That's all I'm going to say. Do the right thing, Threadless!

nathanwpyle at gmail.com on May 19 '09 at 7:36pm

andyg speaks truth about nixing the Twitter logo. I too am not big on personal advertisement.

re: Steelplate

skaw on May 19 '09 at 5:00pm
FA - the difference (other than character count) is tweets vs slogans ... tweets are more of a 'what are you doing' type of thing, so the content is a slightly different angle. the biggest difference is the audience though, just a different community participating.

I think sheer numbers will render that 'dual submission' strategy less than effective. Threadless has around 500,000 followers on Twitter, and hundreds of thousands more will no doubt try to get in on the 'Tweet' submission for money.

In other words, if slogans aren't lauded here then they stand a slim chance at new life elsewhere.

fatheed on May 19 '09 at 7:39pm

I second Andy's sentiment on the Twitter branded tees. That part in particular does not really seem to be in the spirit of Threadless. Although, I guess the regular Threadless market/community is not the target audience for these tees?

Which in itself is kind of a shame.

jublin on May 19 '09 at 7:43pm

everyone is always so negative when there is change.

but i still don't see how this change has any sort of impact to anyone who doesn't use it. If anything, maybe we'll get lucky and it will help gather more threadless users/voters so we can get a sub past 500 votes.

staffell on May 19 '09 at 7:44pm

Well said andy, couldn't have put it better myself.

But what's done is done. As jake said, he doesn't know how well this merge will do and is prepare to we sever the link if things don't work out. However you look at it, this new development is certainly an interesting one, and although fairly skeptical, i look forward to seeing what comes out of it.

staffell on May 19 '09 at 7:46pm

prepared to sever* that should have said

fatheed on May 19 '09 at 7:56pm

I don't think that people are concerned that this change will affect them, just what this kind of change represents.

I welcome change. I hold hands in public with change.

jublin on May 19 '09 at 7:57pm

*throws bucket of red paint on fatheed

davidfromdallas on May 19 '09 at 7:58pm

^ agreed

fatheed on May 19 '09 at 7:59pm

It's not fur! It's my own hair!

hogboy on May 19 '09 at 7:59pm

I'm saving all my good slogans for the Facebook range.

FRICKINAWESOME on May 19 '09 at 8:00pm

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 5:42pm
FRICKINAWESOME - what's your twitter account? I'm gonna nominate the crap out of you and win $$$$!

hahaha man, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm still debating if i want to get a twitteraccount and participate in that world at all. While the 140 character limit is VERY tempting (Threadless, just bump our character type tee limit up to 70, PLEASEEEE?!?!?!), I really can not stand Twitter or the social narcissim that it encourages. Like Andy said, I thought of Twitter as hopefully going away, but it seems as if it's grabbed enough momentum to be here for the long- sigh- haul. I'll probably sign up tho and if any slogan cannot be whittled down to the 65 type tees character limit without destroying the concept or idea, I'll tweet it up. Maybe. lol.

I'm still kinda bummed that twitters get as much money as type tees tho. That's not at ALL why i do type tees, it just feels like it devalues them a bit. Dunno, let's see how this pans out. Good luck to Threadles on this and i hope they can do it in a way that both benefits themselves while remaining true to their creative top-notch spirit.

jublin on May 19 '09 at 8:05pm

The twitter tee about tweeting from space is such a LIE

And you know it threadless. you. know it.

asfi235 on May 19 '09 at 8:24pm

skaw on May 19 '09 at 3:24pm
Anyway, we're pretty stoked to open up the whole community based tee creation process to other communities around the web and are anxious to see how this works out. Thanks for your feedback thus far!

The scariest scenario is the Twitterverse discovering the regular graphic design submission process. If the submission-approving staffers don't break under the strain, the voters surely will. As it is, the "average" number of votes per submission has dropped from around 2000 to under 600. How low can it go before it loses all relevance?

How special is "community" when it's the size of a medium-sized city?

pyko on May 19 '09 at 8:37pm

oh and another question...do we get to see how many votes/% our 'twitter tees' are getting?

coz if i'm not mistaken lots of people tweet like crazy so if only the most recent 10 tweets are shown they might get like....less than 1 minute on front page?!?

and how will that work with voting...since from slogans i would imagine that you really need at least 50 votes to be considered...

Chengui on May 19 '09 at 8:41pm

fatheed
fatheed on May 19 '09 at 7:59pm
It's not fur! It's my own hair!

wax dude. wax.

jess4002 on May 19 '09 at 8:55pm

andyg on May 19 '09 at 7:10pm
If there really is a demand for Twitter-inspired t-shirts, I suppose people ought to be able to buy them somewhere. But why at Threadless? Why not do all this on Twitter's site?

i just got a chance to read everyone's comment and twitter tees is definitely an interesting announcement. i agree with what andyg is saying though...i see twitter doing this because...well, they can easily reach all of the twitter users...but a partnership with threadless isn't bad either? i'm still confused with what's going on, so i'm probably not making sense, haha.

SteveOramA on May 19 '09 at 9:06pm

word
up

skaw on May 20 '09 at 12:07am

andyg - not sure what you mean, the twitter tees are not on threadless and you can't buy them from threadless - there is a completely separate co-branded website for the twitter tees... you can't even use your threadless user account to log in...

skaw on May 20 '09 at 12:10am

asfi235 - i imagine most new users who may come from discovering threadless through twitter tees would most likely participate by voting rather than submitting... hence an improvement in avg score numbers

skaw on May 20 '09 at 12:18am

lol jublin, it was pretty funny when we printed up those tees and that news came out like the next day

radiomode on May 20 '09 at 9:07am

so this twitter tees are not Threaldess' ? Is it like 50/50 split?

This whole thing makes me realize how much I am lagging behind in terms of social thingy

Steve The Great on May 20 '09 at 9:25am

hey nice design check out my tweet!

skaw on May 20 '09 at 9:41am

@steve lol nice tweet!

andyg on May 20 '09 at 9:59am

skaw on May 20 '09 at 12:07am
andyg - not sure what you mean, the twitter tees are not on threadless and you can't buy them from threadless - there is a completely separate co-branded website for the twitter tees... you can't even use your threadless user account to log in...

As long as there's a Twitter tab up on the Threadless menu bar, and the Twitter shirts are made by Threadless, it's hard for me not to see it as an separate, independent thing.

Skaw, you're the last person I want to argue with. Trust me! With all my negative comments aside, I wish you the best of luck with this and I hope that Threadless makes a ton of money from this venture. But if it doesn't, drop Twitter like it's hot!

littlem on May 20 '09 at 10:05am

none of my tweets are shirt worthy anyway. hell, they're not even worth reading most of the time. that's why there's an "UNFLOLLOW lillembutt" day nearly every day of the week!

littlem on May 20 '09 at 10:06am

if you fLollow me, i'll fLollow you

no i won't

skaw on May 20 '09 at 10:07am

yea andyg i hear ya - that is just a promotional piece, not a permanent tab and will be gone in a couple weeks

Torakamikaze on May 20 '09 at 10:12am

i would wear a shirt that discussed annie's magnificent poops

littlem on May 20 '09 at 10:17am

you're a sick, sick man, torasteve. sick. :P

SuperRyan on May 20 '09 at 10:19am

As long as there's a Twitter tab up on the Threadless menu bar, and the Twitter shirts are made by Threadless, it's hard for me not to see it as an separate, independent thing.

Ditto

againstbound on May 20 '09 at 12:26pm

Personally I'm not a fan, mainly because I've never liked twitter/facebook/whatever social networking site. I would never post/nominate/buy anything there, but then agaiin I'm sure I'm not part of the target market.

I was worried about the slogans too, glad that was already cleared up. And as long as I can keep roaming the halls of Threadless without running into random tweets and such I have no major issues with it.

The one thing that kinda bothers me is that in the product pages there's no indication as to who did the typework. Something that I liked of Threadless from the start is how they credited artists, it would be nice that it was the same there. I'm guessing the first 4 are probably done by Ross and Joe, but even if they're in-house designers a little credit wouldn't hurt.

Anyways, not my cup of the but good luck in your new enterprise. Hopefully it will be succesful enough that it would allow Threadless to print underscored, amazing designs on a regular basis.

skaw on May 20 '09 at 12:42pm

againstbound, agree on the credit - we should definitely do that. thanks for the feedback!

phillydesigner on May 20 '09 at 4:14pm

agree on the credit

agreed.

pyko on May 20 '09 at 6:35pm

hmm come to think of it maybe hopefully these twitter tees will reduce some noise on the slogans?? i remember when i first started (and was voting solely via the 'vote/submit' page) there was a whole TON of just random slogans being posted up like every second by ~3ppls (and they were just having a conversation between themselves!!!)

btw...as asked earlier but probably missed... will we as owners of the 'tweets' see the number and % of votes?

8 days later