Comments on: Threadless and the Future of Product Design http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/ Tech, Entrepreneurship, and Venture Capital in New York City Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:40:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: fraze http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/comment-page-1/#comment-94296 fraze Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:21:40 +0000 http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/#comment-94296 http://travelnursingdirect.com/ http://travelnursingdirect.com/

]]> By: Andrew Parker http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/comment-page-1/#comment-15538 Andrew Parker Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:13:31 +0000 http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/#comment-15538 Michelle: I agree that there's a level of uniqueness at threadless which goes beyond the product. Its the story you get to tell people when they say: "hey, cool shirt." Whether or not that element of uniqueness can be replicated by other services remains to be seen. The Google Video/YouTube example you bring up does outline a difference in community, however, I believe that different was generated by subtle design choices (YouTube looks and feels like a social network whereas Google Video looks and feels like a faceless service with little-to-no community interaction). With better design, I suspect that Google Video could have gained more traction compared to YouTube. Eric Ni: I think we're talking about two different things here. You seem to be saying that complex mechanical engineering will never be replaced by crowdsourced design. I am saying that product design (the look-and-feel, the interaction, the packaging, the art design) will be replaced by crowdsourced design. Nonetheless, I can envision a world in which even MechEng is replaced by crowdsourcing, but that is a much more distant future. Michelle: I agree that there’s a level of uniqueness at threadless which goes beyond the product. Its the story you get to tell people when they say: “hey, cool shirt.” Whether or not that element of uniqueness can be replicated by other services remains to be seen. The Google Video/YouTube example you bring up does outline a difference in community, however, I believe that different was generated by subtle design choices (YouTube looks and feels like a social network whereas Google Video looks and feels like a faceless service with little-to-no community interaction). With better design, I suspect that Google Video could have gained more traction compared to YouTube.

Eric Ni: I think we’re talking about two different things here. You seem to be saying that complex mechanical engineering will never be replaced by crowdsourced design. I am saying that product design (the look-and-feel, the interaction, the packaging, the art design) will be replaced by crowdsourced design. Nonetheless, I can envision a world in which even MechEng is replaced by crowdsourcing, but that is a much more distant future.

]]> By: Eric Ni http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/comment-page-1/#comment-15254 Eric Ni Tue, 21 Nov 2006 06:14:33 +0000 http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/11/20/threadless-and-the-future-of-product-design/#comment-15254 I think the Threadless concept still plays on a nitch. You have to consider the complexity of the design requirements, the amount of relevant expertise that exists, and a sizable community of interest. If it were custom images smacked onto any commodity product, then I think Threadless has something going for them. The more complex the product, the less likely Threadless will work. Scaling from 2d to 3 dimensional products will be a huge leap. I think we're very far from it. I can see why it might work and why it wouldn't work. Critical issues would be product turnaround and selection size. I think the Threadless concept still plays on a nitch. You have to consider the complexity of the design requirements, the amount of relevant expertise that exists, and a sizable community of interest. If it were custom images smacked onto any commodity product, then I think Threadless has something going for them. The more complex the product, the less likely Threadless will work. Scaling from 2d to 3 dimensional products will be a huge leap. I think we’re very far from it. I can see why it might work and why it wouldn’t work. Critical issues would be product turnaround and selection size.

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