Fifty years ago, when you wanted to purchase a new washing machine, you talked to your local Kenmore dealer. He lived down the block from you, coached your son’s baseball team and had briefly dated your cousin in high school. You went way back, and you knew he’d take care of you when it came to whatever appliance you needed because your relationship told you he would.

Mechanization, multinational corporations, robotic automation, interactive voice response phone systems, and the unholy meat-based homogeneity that is McNuggets have fought tooth and nail in order for us to forget the old ways altogether. Loyalty is irrelevant in the modern age. A constant barrage of louder and louder commercials spewing misleadingly low prices and half-hearted promises with pages of fine print compete for our consumer dollars and care nothing for our consumer hearts.

It’s not like these companies are inherently bad, or that they’re not filled with fantastic people. The system cuts both ways, producing both disaffected, fickle consumers and employees apathetic and emotionally detached from the products and ideas they’re selling. The humanity has gone missing.

The internet is not a magic fix for this problem, either. The world does not need yet another heavily animated microsite or a blog written by the same person responsible for writing your awful, self-aggrandizing press releases. What it needs, and what social media offers, is a fresh start for the lost relationship between consumer and producer.

Tomorrowpants is a new kind of company. We build tools and services that help help brands rekindle lost connections with their audience. Our first product, WhatUWearin’, lets users tag their outfits in Facebook Photos and rate their friends. We think that everyone talks about fashion (even people way too interested in camo), and WhatUWearin’ brings an online home for that discussion. As it grows, we’re developing methods for brands to become directly involved in these conversations. To listen and relate, rather than shout and badger. 

Last week we began the private beta launch co:tweet, a tool that helps teams manage their twitter presence. Twitter has tremendous potential to help bring the humanity back to the way people experience companies - just look at Frank at @comcastcares, Tony at @zappos or Shashi at @netsolcares. That I even know these peoples’ first names says that there’s something huge going on. What’s missing, though, are common patterns to answer the question, “How can my business effectively use twitter?” Co:tweet provides tools and workflow to help brands through this process. 

We build things we’re passionate about. More to come soon.