it@cork

Spreadshirt.net buys LaFraise.com

Online merchandising website Spreadshirt has bought French company La Fraise, Ltd., an internet based t-shirt publisher which hosts an ongoing design competition for its users.  The takeover means that Spreadshirt can use the site's well established online community of designers and t-shirt fans in conjunction with its own. This development comes after Spreadshirt had established its own design competition, The Derby, which has now been replaced by La Fraise.

LaFraise.com is a 500 items limited t-shirt publisher that offers graphic designers permanent content, and for the winner, €1,000 for each design printed. The goal for each designer is to screenprint and sell the most liked designs, following voting from the site's visitors.

La Fraise (meaning 'The Strawberry') was founded by Patrice Cassard in his apartment in 2003 and now hosts a community of over 70,000 users made up mainly of designers and design fans.  The site has proved to one of France's greatest Web 2.0 success stories. "It is the community as a whole that influences the choices we make regarding the website, " notes Cassard.  "[The website] isn't limited to marketing, but an everyday reality. In a way, it's a sort of huge board of directors."