Design-it-yourself -- shoes, T-shirts, and more
The New York Times has finally deigned to discover the movement toward customer-designed goods -- a trend previously documented by Business 2.0, among other outlets. The Times, however, does illustrate that the idea of letting customers use the Web drive new products is spreading into unexpected new areas, like shoes. Designer John Fluevog solicits designs from loyal "Fluevogers" online, calling it "open source footwear." Threadless, a T-shirt store, has contests for the best customer designs.

Consultant Rex Hammock finds the notion familiar, saying that it echoes themes found in a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto, which proclaims that online communication will undermine the traditional approach to marketing. It's unlikely that shoe fans read that geeky tome, however. Fluevog, according to the Times, just sees the move to selling customer-created shoes as a natural outgrowth of his customers' enthusiasm.
Posted by Owen Thomas 9:41 AM 0 Comments comment | Add a Comment

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Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer LIBOR Warning: Neither BBA Enterprises Limited, nor the BBA LIBOR Contributor Banks, nor Reuters, can be held liable for any irregularity or inaccuracy of BBA LIBOR. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2012 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer The Dow Jones IndexesSM are proprietary to and distributed by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and have been licensed for use. All content of the Dow Jones IndexesSM © 2012 is proprietary to Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Chicago Mercantile Association. The market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2012. All rights reserved. Most stock quote data provided by BATS.