It's Elementary! Buy A Watson T-Shirt, Send The Profits To Charity

by , 5:00 PM EDT, June 3rd, 2002

Karelia Software, makers of the excellent Mac OS X searching tool Watson, have announced new Watson t-shirts. The shirts will be feature the Watson logo, and Karelia is donating all of its proceeds for the sales to charity. The merchandise being offered includes (as of press time) a mug, two shirts, a bag, a BBQ apron, and a "flying disk." From Karelia Software:

Karelia Software, LLC announced the availability of Watson T-shirts and other "wearware" products featuring the Watson logo and icons, available to the public. Until now, T-shirts were only made available for promotional purposes.

All of Karelia's proceeds from the sales of these items (generally $2 per item) will go to charity. "We're in the business of writing innovative software, not manufacturing 'swag'," said Dan Wood, Karelia president and creator of Watson. "We realized that we could combine our mission to make the world a better place with users' requests for T-shirts by spotlighting our favorite nonprofit organizations. So each month we'll publicize a group to the Watson community and hopefully generate a nice donation from the T-shirts."

The shirts are produced and sold by CafePress.com, a company that specializes in on-demand production of T-shirts and other paraphernalia such as discs (the kind you throw to your dog, not the kind you put in your computer), coffee mugs, and cooking aprons (useful for aficionados of Watson's "Recipe" tool).

Each month, as long as the store is active, Karelia will choose a new nonprofit organization to benefit from the proceeds of the items. The "Charity of the Month" will be chosen by Karelia, although suggestions from the Watson community are certainly welcome (via Watson's "suggestion box" feature).

Watson, winner of the 2002 Apple Design Award for "Most Innovative Mac OS X Product", is downloadable as a fully functional, expiring demo.

You can find more information about Watson itself, as well as the new t-shirts, at Karelia's Web site. Watson is offered as an expiring demo, and is priced at US$29 for a single user license, and US$39 for a "household" license.

The Mac Observer Spin:

The life of a shareware developer is seldom easy, and that makes this offer from Karelia to donate all proceeds from merchandising sales all that much more cool. We offer the developers a Mac Observer Salute!

Karelia