More T-shirt Hacks

Turns out, T-shirts are a pretty versatile medium - here are two more cool hacks to go with the one I found earlier:

Tagging On A T-Shirt

Textually pointed me to this project where you can publish a machine readable message on a T-shirt.

The code is Semacode, and theoretically, is readable by a cell phone (though, not Sidekicks, as far as I know). This kind of reminds me of the CueCat debacle, though has one major difference: the device for reading the bar code is mobile. You don't have to sit down at your computer to scan a barcode, which is probably more of a hassle than simply querying Google directly.

Semacodes could really be cool - they provide a cheap, convenient and durable way to bind the physical world to the virtual one. And they make descent t-shirts too.

Text Me T's

If Semacode is a bit too out there for you, here's another novel use for T-shirts which is a bit more ready for prime time. Duct Tape Marketing mentioned the site Reactee, which allows you to create custom T-shirts. These custom T-shirts allow you to promote a message and request people send a text message to the folks at Reactee with a specific keyword.

Reactee apparently takes care of the messaging headaches and allows you to focus on choosing a message for your shirt.

The whole goal of this appears to be that you can promote a business, cause or idea, simply by wearing a T-shirt. People curious enough about it will text the keyword mentioned on the and will get back a response from you.

It's clever stuff, and the creation process is really slick. I'm tempted to buy a T, but I have no idea what I'd put on it.

Here's a thought - what about putting the information on the back of the T so that folks don't have to stare at the chest of the wearer to get the mobile number. Oh wait, maybe that's part of the appeal.

Again, this is another cool way for bridging the physical and the virtual.