Customized Girl is one of the many sites that sell personalized t-shirts and other fashion items. What makes them special is their clever marketing strategy to have a blog with many "top xxx" lists that (i) many other blogs will pick up as blogs always top-xxx lists (see, it worked), (ii) and at the same time always have their site as an entry ( see #34 below!). Really clever and very well done!
Today, they published not a list on best ideas for a bachelor party or the worst dressed persons ever, but their 101 tips on mass customization. Well, after item 74 the editor probably got board and filled the list with some very general design stuff. But the list is a very good source of information in any case!
Here are some of the links that Customized Girl selected to show how mass customization and online customization is driving businesses today (I picked some not so obvious ones, and some oddities). You find this blog at #15, and some more in the full list.
1. BizReport : A 2008 article detailing how customized products are the “it” thing. Consumers, according to this study, are sick of “cookie cutter” solutions. Allowing your customers to customize the product you are selling to their interests could increase the value by 18 percent.
5. Failure of Customization : This 2002 article talks about why the online customization business will ultimately fail. While its hypothesis hasn’t been proven yet, it argues that customized products aren’t better than mass-produced products.
15. Mass Customization Blog: A super-handy and uber-detailed blog dedicated to the mass customization industry. Look for wordy entries and lots of links from this blogger.
22. Design Intelligence : What sort of effect will the mass customization boom have on purveyors and creators of high design? Find out by reading this great article by Design Intelligence.
23. ZD Net: A strong article which discusses the correlation between widgets and product customization. While this article refers mostly to online software customization, it would still be helpful to brick-and-mortar customization businesses looking to expand their presence on the web.
25. Your Brain on MC : This is a funny blog entry on Treehugger which shows what happens when a person, using a customization site, turns his brain scan into a lamp.
34. Customized Girl : This cute site lets you customize T-shirts and other clothing items for women, men and kids, though it has a specific focus on women’s clothes. The site has a wide variety of styles and trends one of the biggest on the web and has an easy-to-use site. You can even upload your own images to be printed on your merchandise. And expect nothing but the best-quality products this company sells garments from reputable manufacturers like American Apparel and Bella.
39. Coco Myles : Forget fashion school! Coco Myles has a way for all you budding Donna Karan’s to create the dress you’ve always dreamed of with its online design studio. Pick your fabric, select your cut and color, and even add different accents.
71. Stem Cell : Need some customized cells or plasma samples? Who doesnít, really? Well, look no further. Stem Cell is here to help you out with its host of customized genetic products.
Read the full posting here: http://www.customizedgirl.com/blog/?p=501
Would Design by Humans or springleap.com be examples of crowdsourcing?
Posted by: james | January 09, 2009 at 11:44 AM