If you’ve ever been to a conference you know the anticipation connected with the Schwag Bag which comes filled with bribes gifts from vendors hoping that by giving you a pen, t-shirt, condom, coffee mug, USB drive that you’ll buy their product, give them a favorable review or use their bribe gift in front of influential people.
Of course as a receiver of the schwag you don’t care what the vendor wants – you are just hoping for something that will make you cool, look important, give you bragging rights or give you something to play with on the plane on the way home from the conference.
Unfortunately – if you live in an isolated part of the world or if you don’t have the thousands of dollars necessary to get to these conferences (after all $1000 for a bag of schwag is probably not a responsible way to spend your AdSense cheques) you might like to check out this new service called Valleyschwag. They will send you a bag of schwag each month for just $14.95 USD (or a bit more if you’re not in the US).
It’s actually a pretty cool idea for a business. Those supplying the schwag get their products/brand to you, you get your schwag (they say there’s at lest a t-shirt in each delivery so I could have just found a way of clothing myself and my family for life) and can look ‘cool or important’ and Valleyschwag make a few dollars on the side.
Schwag me up Baby!!!!
via techcrunch
But the exhibition babe does not deliver the schwag… it’s part of the experience ;)
Darn that looks cool. Darren you’re not allowed to link to anything else that costs money this month, OK? Argh I’m so impressionable…
Will be interesting to see what arrives. As you say, at least I get a t-shirt each month :)
sorry Andy :-)
I must admit… I just subscribed. :)
[…] [Valley Schwag found via ProBlogger […]
Aaron is such a sucker
Well, I don’t know how you guys see this, but here in Germany we have quite a lot of those services that enter you in 10 million prize draws or that send you different products for testing. The only thing you have to do is pay a monthly fee.
Most of those businesses are just wanting your money. You won’t see too much of a value back.
However, I don’t know those guys, but to me it looks like one of those businesses.
Cool! Thanks, Darren. :-)
One thing about this swag is that not to many people will have the same shirt as you will. From the looks of the shirts there are some decent designs and it looks very professional. I would want one of these unknown non mainstream shirts before a Nike or Reebok shirt.
I’m just hoping for a Technorati or Yahoo shirt. If I get either of those I’ll find my investment to be worth it. :p
Hey, glad you guys are enthusiastic about the schwag.
Holch, we really aren’t one of those companies. We’re a web 2.0 design/development shop in San Francisco that had this idea, put the site up as a half joke, then made it a real service when people started signing up. If the service is bad you can always complain by calling me on my mobile (+1 415 722 9449) or stop by our office for some cereal ( http://flickr.com/photos/tags/cerealbar/interesting/ ).
Aaron, we have a bunch of technorati stuff that will go out in the next package, and I’m working my Yahoo contacts for some good shirts.
What a cool idea, i wish i had of thought of that! Instead i’m just impressionable and have now signed up :-)
[…] I saw this ProBlogger post and had to go look for myself to see if it was real or not. It is. […]
[…] I admit fully to buying a Valleyschwag subscription after reading Darren’s report. If I get a minimum of one free teeshirt every month PLUS more silicon valley company gear on top of it, then my $15/mo subscription is worth it. I want a Technorati shirt, Yahoo! gear and more…Can’t wait to see my first bag o’ loot. […]