This is a nice little idea - and a bit of a travel first as far as we can tell.
When the idea of clever mash-ups first starting appearing on the web a few years back, many people were wowed at the technical prowess (which was actually rather simple once APIs came into vogue) and cooed over the often utterly random things many sites were creating.
In other words: some were often rather pointless once you got over the 'Oh, that's interesting' nature of it.
Crime rates from a local police department on a Google Map? Okay, thanks. Fly-drive routes on Google Earth? Interesting for a little while longer.
So imagine you're a online hotel brand which has the design of its establishments as its raison d'être - providing hotels where Metropolitan arty types like to say they stayed and then fawn about the decor to their Metropolitan arty type friends.
It would then make perfect sense to try and capture some of that groovy enthusiasm, right?
Step forward high-end European boutique brand Design Hotels, which has teamed up with MyDeco - lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman's latest wheeze - for a neat little tool to tap into this post-trip desire to remember the asthetics of the establishment.
[MyDeco is a community site for budding - leaning towards luxury, to be fair - DIYers]
Paricpating hotel pages on the Design Hotels website - Hotel Sezz in Paris, for example - now carry a button "Buy The Look at MyDeco.com".
Users are then directed to a landing page on the MyDeco site which displays various items of furniture from the hotel which are commercially available - with links out to the re-seller.
Okay, so this is probably not a partnership that is going to blow the socks off the likes of Mashable et al, but it's a clever and no doubt far more valuable collaboration between two parties almost destined to share their USP.
Like it. Not dissimilar to the idea of buying a hotel branded CD of the music that plays at the hotel too. Big vogue for that a while back wasn't there. It's all about lifestyle innit...
Maybe an airline could do: buy the food you ate on board in economy class? That would be err awesome! Bet you could write a great list of mash-ups like this that should NEVER be contemplated!
Very clever if they are doing it via an api - we had to do all ours by hand choosing the products! http://mydeco.com/buy-the-look/968/
Nice little idea! What else are hotel rooms other than a showcase of furniture and decoration?
I am surprised we haven't seen more of this (maybe it's just me - deco is not my specific interest). We should now witness Ikea hotels popping up where you can live and test the furniture to get inspired.