So sorry if you had trouble joining us for the SpreadX on Socail Media today - we had some audio troubles and it looks like Twitter has had some troubles today too. (I guess we picked the wrong day to talk about social media :))

One of the things that I think is key to understanding and working with social media is understadning RSS - i highly reccomend the video RSS in Plain English by the Common Craft folks.  We watched it again this morning and discussed.  Deb who also works here at Spreadshirt found this video from the folks at Common Craft on Social Media - which is a really way of looking at social media.  I have been working on blogs and social media here at Spreadshirt for a few years now and I had never thought of explaining it this way.

What websites/videos have helped you to understand social media?  What social media tools have you used to help you with your Spreadshirt shop?

Text messaging seems to be the topic of conversation in many areas of my life.  I was just having a conversation last week with some other web developer friends about if texting creating a significant change in the way we communicate.  I was actually in their office because they are including me in a new project they are working on about texting local events.  I will post more on that when it becomes live.

But texting is here and you can exchange a lot of great info in 140 characters and it offers an opportunity for you to share info about your shop and your favorite t-shirts in a quick way.   Here are some texting related tools things to check out:

• Plurk - new to the playing field, I have seen alot of talk about this lately.  Kind of like twitter - but more features.  Check out this post on Problogger about the difference between twitter and Plurk.
• Summize - this lets you search what other people are twittering - want to see if anyone twittered about your shop - just run a search in Summize and check it out.  Click here to see what people are twittering about Spreadshirt.com.  Chris Brogan talked about Summize in his post on listening today - he uses the term listening as a way of talking about what people are saying about you or your site or your shop.  Check out the post here for some other great ideas.

Follow Spreadshirt on Twitter:

• Spreadshirtcom - yep - we have a twitter feed.  I try to post something once a week - especially new coupon codes - a super easy way to stay up to date with Spreadshirt
• Jeggers - Jana is the CEO of Spreadshirt - she has a great blog (LifeonaShirt.com) but she doesn’t get a chance to update it all the time. Twitter is a quick way to see what she is up to - I just learned she was sitting in traffic this am- and she also posts interesting business bits.  I am going to text her at Twitter right now to learn more about where I can read more about Zappos.

Do you have a Twitter account for your shop?  To you tweet about your shop or t-shirts?  How do you use texting on daily basis.

Loic Le Meur is an entrepreneur and blogger based in San Francisco.  His newest startup is Seesmic - which is bringing video to online communication.

Here is an interview with Spreadshirt CEO Jana Eggers, yes she is wearing a Spreadshirt shirt,  about customization.

I was going over the shop settings with someone today and they asked me “what is RSS?”  This is one of my favorite questions and I LOVE rss, but it is also one of the hardest things to explain in one sentence.  I have made many attempts at trying to explain RSS and blogging - it took me 3 months to “get” RSS thanks to my friend Dave who never gave up on explaining it to me.

Well thankfully the guys from Creative Commons have put together this nifty 5 minute video that does an amazing job of explaining RSS in a quick convenient format.  If you are new to RSS, I think you will find this helpful.

Since today is March 14, which in numerical format is 3.14 - it is Pi Day! Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world and bloggers here at Spreadshirt. The Spreadshirt German blog has a little contest running match the employee to their gadget.

Here in the US I have created a few Pi items for the occasion - yes we have a Pi symbol for you to use.

I created a track jacket with 3.14 on the front and the pi symbol on the sleeve. I like to think of this as a subtle geek chic.

Other ways to celebrate Pi Day - Wikihow has a whole page of ideas. Which includes watching the movie Pi and getting married on Pi day to show that your love is forever. I love that people make Pi Pies (and cakes and cookies) - there are tons on Pi Day photos on flickr including some homemade Pi Day t-shirts too.

PHOTO: Pi Day shirt, bec.w via Flickr

PHOTO (top): Apple Pi, OrganicVeggie via Flickr

I posted about this back in August - during PodCamp Pittsburgh (which was attended by a few of us from Spreadshirt) a number of smart, geek loving people created the term Bacn. In short BACN = Email you want - But not right now.

The term BACN took off like hotcake (breakfast pun intended) and started popping up around the web every where.   According to the blog TechBurgh bacn has made the pages of the Feb 08 People magazine.  Congratulations to the bacn crew on this prestigious accomplishment.

Check out the official bacn website here: Bacn2.com and of course bacn t-shirts too -http://bacn.spreadshirt.com

Click here to see a video about BACN - Spreadshirt’s own graphics guru Jesse is the guy on the left.

It isn’t as crazy as it sounds.  Tobias wrote about this over on the German Spreadshirt blog (which is written in German).   Scientists are working on a fabric that can turn physical motion in to a power source.  This article from Science Daily details how it works:

“The fiber-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from physical movement,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “If we can combine many of these fibers in double or triple layers in clothing, we could provide a flexible, foldable and wearable power source that, for example, would allow people to generate their own electrical current while walking.”

The article also points out that there is one aspect of this that scientists haven’t figured out yet - how would you wash a shirt like this.

Rick from MacMerch (who does have a Spreadshirt shop) has a video and a detailed blog post up on MacMerch’s video blog - Online Shirt Showdown - comparing Spreadshirt, CafePress and Zazzle.
Here is the video segment.

Check out the blog post here for some really interesting close up photos of the same shirt from all 3 vendors.

Rick has a really great Spreadshirt shop - I am a big fan of the MacMerch t-shirts. You can check out his shop here.

I have a friend who travel to Austin frequently for work and we were talking about the SXSW conference this weekend. So conferences have been on my mind. Then I got the Squidoo lens of the day email about the Macworld Expo which starts tomorrow in SanFrancisco (I really don’t get Squidoo that much - it is kind of like a preblog sort of platform - but I do find their lens of the day emails kind of interesting).

One of my favorite blog posts from last year is the round up of geek t-shirts from last years SXSW. So I was curious to see what kind of t-shirts are around for Macworld. Right on the front page of the Macworld Expo site are some t-shirts for purchase. I was kind of surprised to see this one…

The SXSW geek t-shirts are awesome (none are tie-dyed) so I had high hopes for the official Macworld gear. Here is my question is tie-dye geek? Does anyone wear tie-dye anymore?

Today was my first day of my bowling league (Is bowling geeky?) I had to use the rainbow colored ball, that looks like it was tie-dyed, because I am not strong enough to roll the heavier balls. I made a few jokes about wearing a Hypercolor t-shirts to bowling next week so I could match my rainbow ball. Do they even make Hypercolor shirts anymore?

I would think Hypercolor is a little more geek than tie-dye but honestly I don’t think I would wear either of them to a conference. Would you buy a tie-dye Macworld expo shirt? What are the coolest Mac t-shirts you have seen? Take a look at the Flickr group for Apple t-shirts or the group for Geek t-shirts for some ideas.