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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps).

I wrote about Tweet4Yourtee recently and reviewed another of their shirts. Here we have version two, emblazoned with the same Twitter handle (of course). You too can have a fully customized self-aggrandizing t-shirt – just visit their site, pull out your credit card and it’ll be in the mail. So.. what’s to like (and not)?

Hot

• White T shirts are good
• Saves people being embarrassed asking who I am
• 100% Cotton (why would you do anything else?)
• My hometown heros – Wellington to the World!
• Nice use of the Twitter API on their website

Not

• Made in Bangladesh – need I say more?

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence  will be entered into (perhaps).

Julie Tangen from the Appirio (more on them here) media agency dropped me an email and asked me if I’d like to look at some of the t shirts they had. A couple of weeks later a package turned up for me with a host of Appirio shirts in it – all in black. Look for more Appirio schwag in upcoming reviews.

Hot

• One of the benefits of the cloud being emblazoned on your chest
• Nice thick 100% cotton fabric

Not

• Made in Nicaragua – hmmmm
• I don’t dig black, sorry
• Man I have a lot of t shirts!

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps).

Ahhh Webstock… I’ve waxed lyrical about this conference many times before. It’s not just because it’s held in my hometown: Wellington, New Zealand. It’s because Webstock manages to perfectly balance technology discussions with creative ones. Forward look thought leadership with reflection on where we’ve come from. Aspiration with peer-celebration. Webstock really is something special – any event that, despite being at the end of a 15 hour (or more) airplane trim, can still attract speakers like Kevin Rose, Bruce Sterling and Ze Frank, can justifiably stand up on the international stage.

As well as ultra attention to detail in terms of the speaker lineup, Webstock also pulls all stops when it comes to conference giveaways. Schwag really is too light a word to give to the final crafted items that Webstock participants receive.

So here we have the 2010 Webstock T shirt – featuring a pair of New Zealand Tui birds (hear the Tui song here) to the monogrammed journal, from the amazing conference booklet to these t shirts – everything is a design tour de force.

So there you have it – Webstock the event come highly recommended, and the Webstock t shirt is a lovely piece of kit.

Hot

• Just look at this garment – it’s exquisite!
• 100% Cotton
• My hometown heros!
• Lovely cut
• Even the internal label bears the Webstock logo

Not

• Made in Bangladesh – reportedly by “friends of Webstock” but I’m not convinced

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps).

Just as I was about to run out of t-shirts to review, Wellington startup tweet4yourtee called me up and asked me to check out their new designs.

Tweet4yourtee is an interesting example of combining technology and physical goods – their website shows some nice integrations using the Twitter API and they produce a real world, physical good that has some inherent utility.

They were generous to give me a couple to try out, so over the next week or two I’ll be showing the options they have.

First up is this non-too-subtle shirt which nicely shows off the important information – the Twitter bird and your handle.

Hot

• White T shirts are good
• Saves people being embarrased asking who I am
• 100% Cotton
• My hometown heros!
• Nice use of the Twitter API on their website

Not

• Made in Bangladesh – need I say more?

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps).

I’ve waxed poetic about Zendesk in the past (see here) – for the simple fact that they’re a very cool company. Their product (a SaaS support, help, ticket tracking app) is very cool. Their marketing strategy is very cool. They totally understand the value of fostering community engagement, they’re from Denmark which is always a win in my books but, maybe most importantly, they’re simply nice guys.

I’ve been lucky enough to have received all three generations of Zendesk T Shirts and a month or so ago I managed to luck on to a family set of the 3rd generation tops.

Made, as with previous incarnations, by GMTee out of Hong Kong, there T Shirts are absolutely a study in building a exquisite quality shirt – beautiful fabrics, awesome graphics, lovely design touches and a focus on quality.

Hot

• Orange is a surprising, but effective choice for a shirt
• Wear a Buddha on your chest, have a stillness in your mind
• The side print (see image) of a tree is a high nice, and unsual, touch
• As with previous GMTees, the printing, cloth, detailing and finishing is excellent

Not

• Made in China – part of me wonders about the Karmic implications of the manufacture of this shirt

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps). 

defrag 2009, occupying a prominent space in the expo area, software vendor (and creator of well known editing software Camtasia) TechSmith demos it’s new visual collaboration offering, Jing and, more importantly, it’s new t-shirt design.

In an edgy move, the TechSmith shirt features a WWII bomber run, dropping parachutes underneath which float slides and filmstrip – it’s a somewhat whimsical and pretty cool approach.

Hot

• The front design is actually pretty cool – kind of Bauhaus, kind of retro and kind of whimsical
• I like bby blue, it brings out my complexion or something (actually it just makes a change from black)
• 100% Cotton

Not

• Way too many logos on the back
• Made in Mexico… but I’ll accept that the fight against third world manufacturing is a battle I’ll never win

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a compa ny with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps). 

I’ve always felt indebted to sliderocket. Months ago when writing a review of their product I made the journalist’s cardinal sin, transposing the name of one of their competitors within the article I wrote. Sliderocket CEO Chuck Dietrich was a remarkably good sport about my mistake, although going out for a run with him in San Francisco a few months ago I couldn’t help but think that some of the awesome pace he showed was by way of retribution 😉

Despite some reservations initially, I love the sliderocket product, and their initial foray into the t-shirt arena shows a similar cool, understated elegance.

Hot

• All g33ks have an interest in space travel. Show your pride and wear a rocket on your chest (and back)
• Grey is a good color for a freebie t-shirt
• Keeping it simple is good – minimal text, minimal garishness and good design smarts
• 100% cotton

Not

• Haiti? Haiti? Don’t they drink reactor water there?
• Every time I wear it I’m reminded about my mistake – I’ll get over it one day 😉

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps). 

Despite looking about 15 years old (and Aaron, if you’re reading this that’s a  complement), box.net founder Aaron Levie is a genuinely nice guy with a genuinely cool product. Box.net are an edgy brand, keen to jump up and go head to head with the big boys when necessary. I wrote about them yesterday – the fact they’re here to day is one of those coincidental thing that strike bloggers from time to time….

The box.net t-shirts are always kind of quirky, kind of left of centre and have that “limited edition” kind of a feeling – this one is no different.

Hot

• I like clouds. Wearing stylized ones on my chest is even better
• The “let’s integrate” tagline has some kind of cool connotations 😉
• 100% cotton – did you know that conventional cotton farming is horrible to the environment and your skin?
• Made by American Apparel – in downtown LA where even the riots have rights

Not

• I don’t like dark colored t-shirts – sorry

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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Everyone knows that professional conference goers like myself attend events not to listen to presentations, not to network but to collect schwag. Over the past couple of years I’ve done fairly well collecting tech t-shirts and I decided to create a weekly series critiquing tech companies t-shirt offerings in the expectation that a company with a great t-shirt is a prime candidate to have a great product also. Click here to see the series.

If you’d like your t-shirt reviewed, flick me an email to arrange things. The judges decision is, of course, final and very little correspondence will be entered into (perhaps).

I rave about Atlassian. I’ve used their software in the past but that’s only part of where my fanboi status comes from. They’re very simply a cool, cool bunch of guys.

I picked up one of their other t shirts (review here) months ago and it’s now got pride of place in my t-shirt drawer. In fact during my last trip to the US, my Atlassian and Zendesk t-shirts had number one pride-of-place in my suitcase.

My good friends at Atlassian, knowing both my penchant for the cloud AND for t-shirts, made this special edition shirt just for me. It’s got two sides of cool – a cloud icon on the front and the Atlassian logo on the back.

Hot

• Special release, especially for those-in-the-know, t shirt
• There’s nothing better than a cloud on your chest
• 100% cotton
• From the stable of American Apparel – ethically manufactured in the first world

Not

• I just don’t dig black t-shirts 🙁

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

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