1.  Jeff Howe, author of the Crowdsourcing book, has written an interesting and comprehensive blog post about the possible future online business models that might be adopted by the print media. 2.  RPI, a provider of automated, mass-customized manufacturing and fulfillment for the consumer print-on-demand market, recently announced that it has set an industry record [...]

The music industry has faced considerable strategic challenges in recent years, not least the trend towards reduced revenues caused by file sharing, but also the shift in market power from labels towards online aggregators such as Apple iTunes. Another side-effect of the world wide web on the music industry has been the trend towards dis-intermediation, [...]

An article in LimaOhio.com includes information on American Trim, a company from Lima, Ohio in the U.S. that is held up by the local Mayor as an example of a enterprise that has successfully pursued a mass customization strategy. American Trim manufactures parts for appliances and heavy trucks. ___________________________________________ In FXStreet.com, John Mauldin wrote a [...]

The Inventorspot website has a news item on the new customized travel guides being produced by Dorling Kindersley (DK) Travel. They are similar in concept to Offbeat Guides, which were covered on this site recently. The Inventorspot article considers the DK Travel customized travel guide to be a superior offering to the Offbeat Guide, although [...]

Cincom, which provides software solutions for configuration of complex products (often called product configurators), has started two separate blogs to engage with its customer base. The first of these blogs is called Complex Selling Made Effective, with articles written by contributors from Cincom, principally Louis Columbus and Dale Wolf of Cincom Manufacturing Business Solutions. While [...]

Could 2009 be the year that crowdsourcing takes root in the area of car design? My last 2008 post here described how Caterham, a specialist British sports car maker, is crowdsourcing the design of its next car. In late December, an article in the Boston-based XConomy website described how Local Motors, a startup company in [...]

Caterham, the specialist British sports car manufacturer, has launched a crowdsourcing initiative for the design of its next model, in association with PerformancePR, an automotive public relations company.  The project, named Splitwheel, which is described as “a revolutionary online project to design and build a new performance car based on the collective decision-making of its [...]

Business consultancy Gartner has issued a press release relating to a recent IT symposium which it hosted in Cannes, France. Gartner claims that “Financial Institutions Must Focus on IT Innovation or Hibernate to Weather the Economic Downturn.” The press release quotes Alistair Newton, research vice president at Gartner, who makes a number of recommendations aimed [...]

David Sifry, the founder and former CEO of Technorati, has announced a first public beta (test version) for a new personalized travel guide service called Offbeat Guides. Offbeat Guides create personalized, up-to-date travel guides that cover over 30,000 travel destinations, using a combination of search technology and curation by both amateur and professional travel experts.  [...]

Two design software companies this week had significant announcements. Delcam, based in the UK, will later this year launch a new version of its CopyCAD reverse engineering package. CopyCAD Pro will be the first product development system to offer “Tribrid Modelling”, by adding triangle modelling to the combination of surface and solid modelling that is [...]

An article in the website of the Toronto Star notes that a “futuristic fusion of fashion and technology is becoming more common as clothing designers are increasingly incorporating electronics into their garments.” It quotes Jane McCann, director of Smart Clothes and Wearable Technology at the University of Wales, who predicts that, in the next 10 [...]

In an article proposing how banks can retain customers in the current financial climate, one of the tactics that CRM Buyer website advises banks to offer mass customization: “Banks have a real opportunity to leverage data and technology and to personalize every customer’s experience. In contact centers, for example, new analytics-based technology can draw on [...]

ZD Net reports that Intel is joining with Asus to create WePC, which serves as a sales site for Asus but is also an effort to gain community input in the PC design process. Make Your Own Jeans, which provides made-to-measure denim fashions at affordable prices, has announced a new add-on service that allows clients [...]

Paul Greenberg, a writer and thought leader in the area of customer relationship management (CRM) has, over the last few months, published extracts on his blog from the fourth edition of his book CRM at the Speed of Light. The most interesting extract from my viewpoint is from Chapter 6, which describes ‘characteristics of the [...]

A very good article on the current popularity of mass customization by Kimberly Palmer, titled The Store of YOU, appears in the US News and World Report. The article mentions many of the brands that are well known practitioners of customization, plus a few more that are new to me.  Some interesting quotes: “…because consumers [...]