Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Another Web 2.0 site: Threadless - T-Shirts


The site, Threadless - T-Shirts, is really Cool and Cute. The site is collecting ideas about Slogan/ Pattern/ Charts from all over the world and printing it on the T-Shirts. It is another good fusion of business model and idea from users.

The followings are some my favorite ones:





2 comments:

Gordon Rowe said...

This company is essentially using a youtube-like approach to T-Shirts, and has made a huge amount of money in the process.
They solicit art ideas from their users and put them up to a vote among their users. The top ten shirts from each week are then printed in very limited runs, and sold back to the 'community' that voted on them.

This is a really unique company, in that it seems to be the first example (that I have come across) of a 'web 2.0' concept being integrated into the development of a real (as opposed to digital) product. But it makes sense that the internet can enable better group intelligence when it comes to manufacturing actual goods as well.

The question this leads me to ask is, what other industries could benefit from this kind of collective intelligence? Is it possible that GE could use this to make me a better refrigerator? Or Ford make me a better car? Or do you think it is limited to simple things with rapid manufacturing times?

Sean said...

I would think the trend to PERSONALIZE lots of things and collecting wisdoms from huge group of user, and the idea matching users' need can be passing through eitire group in seconds.

The question is still how to create value from this point.