Follow me and I’ll auto-DM you a 10% off coupon code to my funny t-shirt website.

Smart stuff.

I can confirm the DM arrives. If this code also escapes into the coupon aggregators, that’s even better since more new folks could then potentially discover Rizzo Tees.

All Undies should consider this approach. It evidences good design in that:

• The open enticement of a 10% discount might induce more people to click “Follow” and thus help grow the follower base. All followers receive an immediate reward.
• Folks also should not be surprised by an auto-DM because the Bio copy notifies them it’s coming. Stating this upfront at the Twitter profile serves as a kind of light opt-in for the DM.
• “Auto-DM” implies a programmatic solution that just runs. It thus hopefully doesn’t require too much ongoing time from Chris to maintain. This facet is important, especially for Undies that handle many of their own operational tasks and therefore remain quite busy if not overloaded much of the time.
• It connects new Twitter followers to the online store and rewards participation, aka orders. More visitors might thus become buyers. Transacting directly with fans represents the best monetization going for Undies, and leveraging Twitter to grow direct sales is brilliant.
• In general, it’s always a good idea to imagine what next audience action should follow the current action. For instance, Twitter followers can become buyers. A shipped order could encourage folks to join an email list. An email sent to this list could reward fans for meeting up at an event (like, say, SXSW, here in Austin this week). Fans at events could be led to Twitter. And on and on it goes in a virtuous cycle that ideally benefits fans and creators alike. The fan experience comprises a simple, consistent, point-to-point set of steps across all these mediums: site, store, Twitter, Facebook, events, email, products, etc. Rizzo Tees has established one important link by connecting Twitter to store. How can you make it easier and more enjoyable for your fans to take that next step?

Give it some thought. How can you best employ similar ideas to treat your fans and feed your passion?

Btw, for more sources on this and other topics, dive into our Delicious page. I’ve grabbed a lot on Twitter lately because Undies are using it in all kinds of cool ways. In addition, as Twitter continues its rapid growth, more applications and uses arrive almost daily. Have fun with it, and let us know how you’re using it.

1. The Funnel
2. Sharing is Caring
3. Pr0n
4. Where to Start
5. Git Paiiiiid
6. tinypower
7. Thefting

His talk offers all Undies excellent insights about fostering community.    You can see his slides here.

For years, cartoonists of all stripes have dreamed about making a living from their comics. But until recently their only avenue of success was through a syndicate or publisher. Now, more and more cartoonists are doing it on their own and self-publishing their comic strips on the Web. This 200-page book from Image Comics takes you through everything you’ll need to take your idea from concept to strip…from strip to hobby…and from hobby to full-time job.

Written by four pros who know the ins and outs of the Web — Dave Kellet (Sheldon), Scott Kurtz (PvP), Brad Guigar (Evil Inc.) and Kris Straub (Starslip Crisis) — “How To Make Webcomics” takes you on a step-by-step tour of everything you need to know to make, post and profit from your online comics.

Also enjoy webcomics.com for related content and community.

This is going somewhere, I promise.

In 1969, the Ford Mustang Mach 1 sold for $3122.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

In 2008, the comparable GT MSRPs for $27,420.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

One thing these two commercials make clear is that the Mustang is as American as a rapidly diminishing attention span. So why does the car cost 9 times more 4 decades later? Everyone knows it has something to do with inflation. But what exactly? And more importantly, what does this have to do with you and your merchandise sales? Everything. So watch this video.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

M3 and You

“Don’t know about you
but I am Un Chien Andalusia
wanna grow
up to be…
be a Debaser.”

Debaser, The Pixies

Look, you’re already a business person. Whether you do an order a day or 5000, you’ve already crossed the threshold from being an artist to being an artist-entrepreneur. It’s no small accomplishment, but if you’re not paying attention to what is happening in the financial system then you’re missing something with potentially large implications for your business.

So the short answer is that supply of US Dollars in circulation is growing…  So much so, some say, that the Federal Reserve decided to simply stop reporting it.

The redline ending corresponds to the date the Fed stop putting out their report. Private sources such as Shadowstats.com have jumped in and grabbed the baton, trying to reconstitute M3 from public sources. This picture is the purple line labeled “M3-SGS Continuation.” So, according to this source, annual money supply growth is now at 17%. As the CNN reporter points out in the YouTube clip, the more shares you issue in a company, the more you dilute the stock. Similarly, the more money you put into total circulation, the less each single unit buys.

Okay, pretty simple.

Money supply growth isn’t new. But usually its growth glacial enough to not draw scrutiny from an unsuspecting public. But if this source is correct and we’re on track for 17% growth in a year then we’re in trouble.  Even if it was 10% we’d have to be paying very close attention.  Incredibly, the most common measure of inflation, the official government numbers, have long since removed “Food” and “Fuel” from the calculation.  You’d have to really be nuts to miss this happening.  Dizuh.  A couple of months ago, one of my favorite Austin restaurants eliminated most of their breakfast menu, raised the price of their Poquito Migas by 20% and went to “countertop service” for breakfast to reduce the cost of having employees there all morning serving breakfast.  Businesses are taking such actions everywhere.

Why Tell You this?

Simple.  You’re a business too. You’ve got costs.  And if you’re paying attention, you’re seeing them go up.

• Do you sell t-shirts? Has the cost of blanks gone up? How about ink?
• Do you sell paper products like cards or comics? Have you noticed ink and blank paper costs more?
• Do you sell DVDs? Is your duplicator charging you more for dupes?
• Do you pay for packaging? Is your corrugate supplier charging more?

Your vendors, at least the ones most aware of their own costs, are bearing increased costs from THEIR suppliers. This may already be translating into increased costs to you. Rather than passively endure the squeezing of your own margins, you need to be looking at ways to make sure you’re not the one losing in the end. If your suppliers aren’t raising prices then they may be lowering quality or quantity.  Why? Because it’s the same difference.

Other Strategies

At Amplifier, we are encouraging our clients to add Print-on-Demand products. Why? Because they’re not required to outlay much if any cash up front. Their end audience finances each product as it is ordered. In fact, they’re often covering the printing/shipping and handling costs and STILL delivering margin back to the content creator.

Even here, our costs are going up.  Vendors have raised the price of our paper by 10% and of course we expect this trend to continue. Ink costs are behaving similarly. We’re rolling with it.  If all this talk about money supply gets you excited, well, our condolences.  Sadly, we’re right there with you.  Experts disagree on where all this is going, so we don’t pretend to know the future.  Here are some really interesting and differing opinions on where things are going.

• Jim Puplava - like John Williams of Shadowstats, Jim believes hyperinflation is coming to US
• Mike Shedlock, aka “Mish” – Believes a Japanese-style deflation is coming to the US
  
• Nouriel Roubini – Econ professor at NYU – Expects Stagflation

Forewarned is forearmed.

The guest list really is a who’s who of Internet fame and/or ignominy. Amplifier’s own Joel Bush will be there to hopefully document the event. We gave him a great video camera so honestly, he’s without excuse!

ROFL Con (In their own words)

Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon.

The conference is slated for April 25th and 26th of 2008.

It’s a group dissection of internet culture. What makes it work, why it works, how it works. We’ll talk about where internet culture has been and where we think it’s going.

Then, there’ll be parties. A music show, with memes performing their work live. And then a big blowout party at the end, with everyone dancing and rocking out.

Needless to say, this might be the most important gathering since the fall of the tower of Babel.

Arguably one of the most influential working t-shirt designers today, Glenn Jones, has launched his own t-shirt company, Glennz Tees. If you’ve spent much time in the t-shirt world, you already know his work. He’s won more Threadless contests than anyone. He combines a richly-colored, insanely detailed illustrative style with a laugh-out loud funny visual gag.

Glenn has launched with 6 initial designs. 2 of these designs are completely new, never before seen shirts. The first design, shown above, Go For Launch, features a space shuttle powered by a liquid fuel mix of diet soda and mints. Perhaps you’ve heard that mixing the two produced crazy fountains of propulsed liquid? If not, you can see the results of these two staples of the American diet in this viral video that started it all.

In addition to new designs, Glenn has also produced and updated 4 shirts that he originally submitted to Threadless. These designs rated very well but didn’t win any contests and so they have been very popular and unavailable. Since Threadless allows any designer to keep the rights to designs they didn’t option within 90 days of submission, Glenn decided to produce them anyways.

Dangerous Games	Prankster
Prize Catch	Split Personality

Over the coming months we hope to share more indepth coverage of Glenn's story. But for now, feast your eyes on his amazing creativity and of course, order some shirts!

(In case you're wondering, Glenn is still a Threadless addict. They've been encouraging to him about his new venture and Glenn says he intends to still submit ideas to Threadless. It would seem that everyone wins!)

BONUS ITEMS

• NY Times article on Threadless which features Glenn (2007)
• Read Glenn's interview about launching GLENNZ TEES at Rob Walker's blog Murketing.
• Glennz page on Threadless
• Lastly, subscribe to Glennz Blog to be the first to know when his next design becomes available. It could be sooner than you think.

Nice call, Steve. Thank you.

We help audiences (all of us) find, follow, and enjoy the best work from the emerging class of self-sustaining Internet-based artists, aka the Undependents or Undies, who are telling amazing stories within podcasts, video, webcomics, machinima, animation, etc.

As curators, we feature these programs:

• Undependent.com, which focuses on success stories, trends, insights, and practical advice.
• The Undependent Del.icio.us feed, compiling excellent reference material and news;
• The Undependent Twitter feed, a quick spotlight on great new content, merch, and news;
• The Undependent Universe, our living museum showcasing the best Undies. (Thanks, Netvibes).

The Undependent Universe’s Collection continues to grow. It currently includes the following, in no particular order (visit the site for links):

• Webcomics: The Perry Bible Fellowship; Girl Genius; PvP; Starslip Crisis; Sheldon; Evil, Inc.; Piled Higher and Deeper; Wondermark; Unshelved; Dinosaur Comics; xkcd; A Softer World; Cat and Girl; Dresden Codak; AppleGeeks; Ctrl+Alt+Del; User Friendly; White Ninja Comics; and Octopus Pie.
• The Drumbrella Exhibit: Boy on a Stick and Slither; explodingdog; The Creatures in My Head; Diesel Sweeties; Overcompensating; Scary Go Round; Goats; Wigu; as well as RSS feeds from the creators;
• The Achewood Exhibit: featuring all character blogs;
• Videos/shows: Funny or Die; College Humor; The Onion; Heavy.com.
• Others: Penny Arcade; Rooster Teeth Productions; Angry Alien Productions; JibJab; Despair, Inc.; Ask A Ninja; Smosh; Homestar Runner; Those Lil’ Rabbits; Tiki Bar TV; Engrish.com.
• How To’s and News: Fleen; Webcomics Weekly; Comixtalk; Cold Hard Flash; NewTeeVee; Halfpixel; Web TV Wire; Thinking Machinima; Digital Strips.
• Rotating special exhibits highlighting great stuff, and much more!

We hope our programs help you enjoy the Undies more easily and regularly. We live in such an exciting time, eh? Creative expression flourishes, and newly empowered creators keep inventing more ways to delight their fans.

Thanks again, Steve, for your great post and ongoing work. And thanks, too, to all the Undies and especially all the fans who support them. Without you, this revolution doesn’t happen.

Previously in Undependent…

• We profiled Tiki Bar TV’s Lala Pinup Calendar and praised it for:
  • Its direct function as a wall calendar
  • Its value as a shibboleth for Tiki Bar TV fans…
  • Its deepening of the Tiki Bar TV brand thanks in part to its perfectly executed Vargas-style retro aesthetic

So now we’re introducing to Undependent readers Tiki Bar TV’s new “Drinkbot Decanter.”

Again, Tiki Bar has produced a genuinely original product here. Like the Lala Calendar and the Charooba Mug before it, Drinkbot Decanter scores a direct hit for true fans. But we at Undependent, presuming as we do to be experts, also have to praise Tiki Bar TV particularly their manufacturer Tiki Farm for a tiny detail which serves as the crowning achievement of this product. As this will factor into future merchandise profiles, we’ll call it the “You’ve Got to be Kidding Me” factor.

Drinkbot Decanter’s capstone is the tiny, detailed lampshade included with the order. If you haven’t done so already, watch the classic Drinkbot episode for this perfect bit of prop comedy. Being confident comedians, they don’t stop everything to ensure viewers see the lampshade on Drinkbot’s head. It’s just another example of theinspired lunacy that is the signature of Tiki Bar TV.

So, if you were making an expensive, completely custom mug, would you go to the trouble and add more cost to it for this small joke? Of course you wouldn’t. That’s why we’re not writing about you, we’re writing about someone who really gets how tangible the little intangibles ARE. Cheers and mahalo to Tiki Bar and Tiki Farm for really going the extra mile for a joke.

Now that you think about it, you agree, right? Buy a Drinkbot Decanter to say so!

Ordering couldn’t be simpler. The familiar navigator located beneath each comic strip simply has a new button that reads “Buy a Print.” Click it and you’re done. No Ajax, no Logins, the item is automatically added to the Penny Arcade shopping cart. You can return to the navigator to add more strips, shop for other PA merch in their store, or just checkout.

A simple, subtle, nearly frictionless purchase process. You can read more about it in Gabe’s announcement here.

These cards parody the seemingly endless number of precious-metal credit cards. Despair’s Card comes in Rust, Pyrite (shown) and Tin. But this isn’t everything. The cards are working physical gift certificates. Each is serialized, like any gift card, each can be redeemed online at their store. They’re printed on metallic card stocks, feature embossed alphanumeric gift codes as well as a scratch off panel on the back. (What’s under the scratch off? I’ll never tell.)