CNN is doing something odd. Some of their headlines on their home page have a little t-shirt icon. Click it, and you get an ordering screen where you can order a t-shirt with that headline on it, as pictured above.
While…interesting, doesn’t this run the risk that editors will write headlines to be as “t-shirt marketable” as possible? And while this is vaguely interesting at first glance, won’t this get old quick? I mean, it’s kind of a one-trick pony, right?
“Hey, look at that dude with a headline on his shirt!! That’s crazy!!” I don’t know if it holds the same humor on the 20th viewing.
I guess they're trying to cash in on the hipster DIY t-shirt crowd, but who wants to explain a) "what the headline is about" and b) "why, exactly, did you buy this" a week afterwards?
You should have seen it when this first appeared back in April: you could make your own headline shirts by modifying the URL. They have since updated the app to add hashes for some security.
See http://www.wcbs880.com/Is-CNN-Selling-Shirts-Attacking-ABC-News-/2048938
It's only cool if you're in the article...
I'm not a fan of FOX, but CNN's unstated "We report, We decide" web strategy is very un-2.0ish-ical-like (say it out loud, it kind of makes sense) By this I mean that they allow commenting on certain articles (at first glance, the ones most apt to generate very polarized comments - a gay marriage article will have comments, while a "we have to fill space" type article won't) and sell t-shirts for certain headlines. I want to know who they keep locked in what room that decides what articles get what extra features...
