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Since SO content has the cc-wiki license, it can be remixed to make fun swag. I'm considering setting up a shop to sell t-shirts, calendars, cups, and other stuff with SO user content.

Users who want to show off their best answers or questions could paste in the URL and get a t-shirt or coffee mug with a nicely formatted version of their content. A calendar-a-day for top questions of a given tag would be a great gift.

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Since the SO shop has closed, I'm wondering if there would be any interest in this kind of swag?

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Of course there would be no use of trademarked logos.

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    I know it's seems kind of relevant but you're simply conducting market research here.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 14:44
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    there's a lot of questions on meta of people asking where they can buy shirts and swag. if the site owners aren't interested in making that stuff, i'm asking if people would want to buy shirts/etc using creative commons content. yes, i'm conducting market research.
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 14:51
  • The point of the site is to discuss Stack Exchange though @ted. It's not to provide you with an indication of whether your business plan is viable. I guess you could ask how to do this market research on answers.onstartups.com, though I'm not really sure what's on topic there.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 14:54
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    Considering that we have posted this type of question before, I think closing it just because it's not coming from someone at SE would be at least a bit weird.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:33
  • I agree with Anna. SE swag has never been considered off topic before.
    – Adam Rackis
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:34
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    I don't see how it's on topic @Anna. It's solely asking if anyone would be willing to pay for SO related goods. If I asked the same about anything else it would be off-topic, why is this different?
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:38
  • I asked if there would be interest in a particular kind of SO related goods.
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:39
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    @benisuǝqbackwards This is asking about something site-related that may be of interest to the site community. It's not fundamentally different from meta.stackexchange.com/q/18382 or meta.stackexchange.com/q/108395. The former is closed (and this one maybe should be eventually), but there's no harm in a discussion and/or gathering some ideas. If I or Jin came here and said "Hey guys, we're thinking of designing some new swag. Here's what we've got. What do you think?"... would you really close that as off-topic?
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:49
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    I want a mug like this..!! With Jon Skeet Facts
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 17:08
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    What happens to Attribution-Required for Q&As on Mugs ?
    – asheeshr
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 17:39
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    Ted, this is an absolute brilliant idea. +1. Why didn't I think of this! Are you thinking of setting up an online store? What's the plan?
    – jmort253
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 18:20
  • @AshRj i'd say put a small line of text at the bottom with attribution and use link shortening to reduce characters. no biggie
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 18:45
  • @jmort253 glad you like the idea. I'll contact you through your blog.
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 5, 2013 at 4:39
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    Already had the idea to replicate that T-shirt in the past, after the shop closed - although I never though of setting up another shop. Anyway.... the "how to parse html with regex" question, along with that answer.... printed on a t-shirt.... good idea, good idea indeed.
    – ꓢPArcheon
    Commented Jan 16, 2014 at 9:58

2 Answers 2

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I think this is actually an interesting idea, and I might be inclined to buy a few things that sparked my interest here and there.

My advice, though, is to not just create a huge shop full of various things right off the bat; it's a bit overwhelming. If you want to make it interesting, you could make it more of a Woot-style selling market. Find something new each week (you'd quickly run out of things doing it daily, and a week lets more people browse around at a more relaxed pace). Offer a small discount for those who buy it within the first few days, then regular price the rest of the week, then a slightly higher price once it drops into the normal shop.

As long as you're being creative, I'm sure the people will follow who are interested in buying them. Anyone can just go copy paste one of their answers onto a coffee mug and be "hmmm, that was totally lame and doesn't really make an interesting mug." You need something that makes your products stand out.

I'm generally more inclined to buy things when it's:

  1. not something I could easily make myself
  2. not something that's just always available for the same price 24/7/365
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  • this is very good advice!
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 16:12
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A calendar of my answers would be a bit narcissistic (and boring). How about a calendar of random +10 or more Jon Skeet answers?

I doubt I'm the only .NET developer who would order that.

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    Even 10+ score would make 10 years of calendars. Wow.
    – Arjan
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:46
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    +50 then. What would be cool is to have an interface where you could choose tags, point thresholds, exclusion conditions, etc, for generating a list of Qs.
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 15:52
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    @ted.strauss - that could be incredibly cool.
    – Adam Rackis
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 16:03
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    @ted - another idea - swag with Bobince's famous answer
    – Adam Rackis
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 17:00
  • @AdamRackis suggestion accepted, i've started working on. please post more ideas here if you have any. i'll give you full credit as per cc-wiki.
    – ted.strauss
    Commented May 7, 2013 at 1:37

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