File this under “I wish I’d thought of it first” (although I do have a vague memory of something similar a few years back, can anyone jog my memory?). Tcritic has launched a fun little web 2.0 side project called Tshirt War. Users upload tshirt designs which are battled against other user submissons. Only an early beta at this stage and lacking in features (such as the promotion of winning designs from each battle against other winning designs) its still a fun idea and a good way to discover some cool tees.

The amount of love the online tshirt/clothing industry is getting recently is really interesting, madeforone.com said they “sense a tipping point coming…”, I think its probably already tipped. I’m not sure if its the cool projects like A Better Tommorow (interview coming soon) or the realisation that there is real $’s to be had that is driving this interest. I expect its a little of both but more of the latter. Its reminiscent of the interest in sneaker collecting in sites such as Sneakerplay or Crooked Tongues. While I know nothing about the scene it was an industry which appeared repeatedly in the Mass Customisation literature. I think what is suprising in that scene is how clued up the big players like Nike or Adidas are in involving and feeding these communities and enthusiasts, recognising the role that early adopters play in driving the industry and influencing sales further up the tail (something for me that was missing from the Long Tail by Chris Anderson).