Skip to main content

Target can now scour your Instagram photos to help decorate your dorm, if you want

target platform facebook instagram decorate dorms dorm decorating site 3
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Back in the day, everything about your college dorm was a bit of a gamble. Your school seemed to match you with a roommate seemingly at random, and you had to wander around Bed Bath & Beyond trying to find those sheets specially made for the oddly proportioned mattresses. Now college kids have sites that match them with the perfect roommate, à la a dating site, and Target is trying to tackle the décor issue, too.

The retailer’s new platform lets students take a quiz and uses their Facebook and Instagram profiles to figure out how best to decorate their dorms. The quiz asks about hobbies, color palettes, music preferences, schedules (are you an early riser who eats healthy or a leftover-pizza-at-noon type?), and organizational skills to match you with some products. If you choose to opt in socially, it can use your Facebook likes to find keywords and photos’ color schemes to pick out products from the site. If you invite your future roommate, you’ll see how well your tastes match up.

Target Dorm Decorating Site 4Target worked with design startup Umbra, crowdsourcing site Betterific, and students at design schools to put together the product line, which is budget-friendly and space-saving. After taking the quiz, the site offered up a $76 green office chair, a $13 lamp, and a $50 rolling cart. The color palettes feature a lot of black and white, mixed with light colors, Target’s vice president of brand and category marketing, Rick Gomez, tells Mashable. He says the latest group of college students are used to doing everything on their mobile devices. The company is also betting they’re comfortable sharing their social media with retailers.

For students who’d rather tackle decorating their dorm the old-fashioned way, Target also offers a checklist, so you don’t show up to college sans coffee maker.

Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
It’s not even Prime Day yet, but nearly every model of Amazon Echo is on sale
The Echo Spot on a nightstand.

With Amazon’s two-day October Prime Big Deal Days event (October 8-9) merely a week away, the markdowns have already started rolling in on much of Amazon’s top tech. As a matter of fact, while looking through Amazon deals, we came across four exciting promos you can take advantage of already!

Amazon Echo Pop — $18, was $40

Read more
Prime Big Deal Days is a week away, but this Blink camera pack is 62% off already
The Blink Outdoor 4 installed on a fence

Full Prime Day deals may not kick off until October 8 courtesy of the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days event, but that hasn’t stopped Amazon cutting the price on some highly sought after technology. In particular, it currently has the Blink Outdoor 4 3-camera system reduced by a massive 62%. Normally $260, it’s down to $100 for a limited time, making today an unmissable time to buy. One of the best Prime Day security camera deals around, it’s hard to find better value elsewhere. If you’re keen to secure your home, read on while we take you through what to expect.

Why you should buy the Blink Outdoor 4 3-camera system
Launched in 2023, the Blink Outdoor 4 is one of the company’s newer additions, building on the success of the previous model. The fourth generation of wire-free smart security camera, it’ll keep you aware of everything going on outside your home.

Read more
Best Buy deals: Save on laptops, TVs, appliances, and more
best buy shuts down insignia line smart home products store 2 768x768

Best Buy is one of the biggest retailers out there, along with Amazon and Walmart, and it has a truly massive selection of products for you to pick from. Not only that, but it often offers some of the best deals you'll find out there, which is why we often draw from it for several of our roundups, such as the best TV deals, best laptop deals, and best phone deals. To that end, we've gone out and collected some of our favorite Best Buy deals across several product categories and put them for you below.
Best Buy TV deals

There may be no better place to purchase one of the best TVs than Best Buy. There is almost always some huge savings to find on TVs at Best Buy, and that’s certainly the case right now. You’ll find deals top TV brands like Sony, Samsung, and LG, and more budget-friendly brands like TCL and Hisense are in play, too.

Read more