Calling All Web 2.0 Apps: Clothe Stowe For 2006

A friend commented last week, while I was traipsing around the Bay Area, that I seemed to have a penchant for white T shirts with software company logos. And it's true that I like them. It's almost a uniform for me: blue jeans, white T shirt, my grey fleece sweater, cap on backwards (it's not a beret), and various sorts of footware.

So, I had a brainstorm -- partly because I don't really have enough T shirts to actually wear them all the time, but also because it seems like a fun thing to do: I am going to invite Web 2.0 app developers to dress me for the year.

I promise to wear no shirts except logo'ed T shirts for May-Dec 2006, under the following conditions:

1. Participating companies have to provide me at least the number of T shirts necessary for the agreement. If you want me to wear the shirts one day, one shirt is enough, but otherwise, its the number of days divided by two: 10 days, five shirts. Then I don't have issues with cleaning when traveling.
2. There are 8 months involved, so let's round it off and call it 8 months * 30 days = 240 days.
3. I don't want to wear the same logo for 240 days, so the maximum days I will lease to a single vendor is 20 days.
4. I promise to randomize, so that every vendor will have an equal chance at the big days -- like walking around at Web 2.0, CTC 2006, DC 2.0, or OnHollywood -- as well as an equal chance I will be sitting at my desk, writing all day.
5. I will also create a side blog here at /Message, where I will post the weekly schedule of T shirts.
6. A bonus: the highest bidder will get an additional prize. I will replace the picture of me over there in the right column with a new picture, wearing that company's T shirt, starting on May Day.

So, email me at stowe DOT boyd AT gmail DOT com if you want to play. I will be setting this up as an auction at eBay in the next day or so, once the word trickles out.

tags: clothe+stowe, /message

Comments

[Ian]

Hi Stowe,

Cool idea.

How about opening it up to a wider audience so you can auction off a broader distribution? Gather together a network of interested parties that auction their chest space for hire as a single "buy." Just to make things logistically easier you could auction off sponsorships in week long blocks with the promise that at least one time during the week the "human billboards" will post a picture of themselves on Flickr wearing the shirts near something that tells the world a little bit about themselves (i.e. near a logo for their office or school). Tag the photo with the brand name & whatever else.

Beneficial side effect? After a week of t-shirts, each person is going to have some hopefully cool t-shirts left over to wash and give to their friends.

You can call the ad network, "Threaded Discussion."

[Marc Canter]

Dude - you gotta pay ME for the right to be associated with me.

Blondes, great sticky buds or insider stock tips considered negotiable currency.

Seriously - you come to Gnomedex - I'll have a shirt for you - but it'll be black - not white.

But last I looked - its the software that counts. And the open standards it supports.