You might not think a lot of wit can be stuffed into 140 characters, but most of the people I follow on Twitter inject a fair amount of humor into their updates. Some of them post clever jokes almost exclusively. As a medium for comedy, Twitter forces writers to use the bare minimum of setup for their punchlines. These little nuggets of humor may fall flat sometimes, but when they’re good, they’re really good. It’s not unlike writing for greeting cards or t-shirts.
That’s why it’s not surprising to see companies trying to tap into that comedy goldmine to create physical products. The latest to launch is Twitshirt. Now, they’ve since unlaunched, so let me explain the idea and what happened yesterday to make them reconsider their business plan.
When Twitshirt launched, they offered to print any tweet on a t-shirt for $20. For each shirt sold, $0.50 would be set aside for the author. To claim your royalties you had to log in with your Twitter password. If you didn’t want your tweets used you could log in and opt-out.
To be fair, Airbag Industries, the company behind Twitshirt, was trying to do right by Twitterers by offering royalties and an opt-out option. But many, including myself, felt opt-out was the wrong model. Tweets are copyrightable, and that’s just not how copyright works. An opt-in system is the only way to be sure you have permission to reuse someone’s tweets. It didn’t help that, whether you wanted to opt-out or not, you had to give them your Twitter password.
As you can see on their site now, Twitshirt has heard the community’s complaints and are “reversing the polarity.” Such a quick turnaround shows they’re paying attention and want to be real partners with the community. I look forward to seeing the changes they make, and even buying a shirt or two from my favorite Twitterers.
What do you think of Twitshirt and their business model? Let us know in the comments.
I’ve seen this twitter phenomenon for so long. Twitter seems like didn’t care when someone use their trademark. Maybe, in order to improve the usage of twitter, it is still considerable. But, how about someone that take opportunity to gain some profits behind twitter’s trademark. I think twitter should be strict in what ever organization that use their trademark.
That is a great idea. The ideas the possibilities are endless. Would like to know how the end up working this out. I can think of a dozen shirts already with various Twit themes.
I guess it’s a good idea–seeing as though everyone has somehow benefited from twitter monetarily…but I wonder what tweet would even be significant enough to put on a 20 dollar tshirt?
I like the idea after all a true business man is He who knows how to cash on IDEAS……
http://twitter.com/mahatru
The idea is great!!!
I'm from Argentina and I found the same service (or at least similar) here. They have the same domain, but with the TLD .ar –> http://twitshirt.com.ar/
I have some friends that bought t-shirts and they love them. I'll try one and then I let you know if works fine. I read in their FAQ that they send overseas orders. I'll give it a try.