The fairly high-profile start-up, which was co-founded by Kim Kardashian and raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz, got its start as a subscription service.

For $40 a month, women would receive a pair of shoes, based on their preferences.

The catch, however, was that if you failed to log in and tell ShoeDazzle that you weren’t interested that month, they would charge you anyway. The model was reminiscent of mail-order CD clubs that drew you in with the offer of 10 albums for one cent, but then signed you up for a monthly shipment unless you opted out in advance.

Under the changes announced today, ShoeDazzle members will only be charged if and when they make a purchase — no matter if it is once a month or once every six months.

Everything else remains the same, so members will continue getting an email offering a monthly selection of shoes, selected according to their personal preferences. The shoes will also continue to be made specifically for ShoeDazzle from a variety of manufacturers in China.

Without the commitment of  having to log in every month, the site could appeal to a wider audience. Today, ShoeDazzle has 10 million members, up from three million a year ago.

“But that isn’t enough,” Strauss said in an interview. “We want tens of millions.”

As part of the changes, ShoeDazzle will also add new categories to the site, including apparel and lingerie in addition to shoes, and some handbags.

“The feedback that we’ve been getting is that when they see the shoes on the model, they want to buy the whole outfit,” Strauss said. “We want to increase our share of the closet.”

Six months ago, Strauss joined ShoeDazzle from Provide Commerce, where he was CEO. Provide Commerce is known for operating sites such as ProFlowers and RedEnvelope. ShoeDazzle’s founder, Brian Lee, is now chairman. In addition, Kardashian, who helped launch ShoeDazzle, is playing a less active role in the company today, but continues as a spokeswoman.

Well, you better decide fast. For many sites, today is the final day that orders can be placed to get guaranteed delivery by Christmas.

If you are having a hard time coming up with ideas, there are plenty of Facebook applications that will offer recommendations based on a gift recipient’s interests.

Late last month, Wal-Mart launched an application called Shopycat, which does just that.

To be helpful, I got a list of Shopycat’s 20 most-recommended gifts. At the very top of the list was an unexpected item called a “personalized keepsake box” for men. The box, which costs $24.76, is designed to hold a man’s watch, jewelry, money clip and/or other items.

It’s not clear what a person’s interests would have been for this to surface at the top of so many lists (maybe the popularity of the holiday-themed Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg music video “Dick in a Box” had something to do with it?) After all, many of the other items on the list are clearly based on someone’s favorite TV shows, movies or videogames. For instance, other fun items that made the list were action figures for “The Big Lebowski,” an Angry Birds beanie and “Star Wars” bathrobes.

As for the man box, it is sold out, so clearly some people agreed with Wal-Mart that it made for a good gift.

Not all of the items are recommendations for items sold on the Wal-Mart site. It also refers shoppers to other sites, such as ThinkGeek.com, Barnes & Noble, CBSstore.com and RedEnvelope.

Wal-Mart did not say how many people have used the app since it went live last month, but given that Wal-Mart has 11 million Facebook fans, it could represent big numbers.

Here is the entire list of most-recommended gifts for 2011:

1. Personalized Keepsake Box
2. “Star Wars” Jedi & Sith Bathrobes
3. Personalized “Home is Where your Story Begins” Canvas
4. “Twilight: Director’s Notebook: The Story of How We Made the Movie”
5. 3-Pointer Basketball Tin
6. “House” Cane Ornament
7. “Harry Potter” Clue
8. Men’s Comfy Feet Miami Dolphins
9. “How I Met Your Mother” MacLaren’s Irish Pub Shot Glass
10. OtterBox iPhone 4 Defender Case
11. Angry Birds Red Bird Peruvian Beanie
12. Picnic Backpack
13. “The Big Lebowski”: Urban Achiever 8-Inch Figures
14. The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book
15. Tennis Star Gift Tin
16. Dallas Cowboys Floor Mats
17. “1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die”
18. “The Wire”: Bubbles Depot Reusable Travel Mug
19. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn” Wall Calendar
20. “Game of Thrones” Sword Letter Opener

Two years ago we decided to move our servers to 365 Main because we believed its San Francisco facility could accommodate our expected growth better than any other, and for a comparable price. And that’s exactly what has happened. 365 Main has fulfilled its brand promise of [the] ‘world’s finest data centers’ by delivering the reliability and uptime that attracted us in the first place.”

–Dale Emel, director of technology services at RedEnvelope

Well, 365 Main couldn’t have picked a worse day to celebrate its uptime record, now could it. Yesterday morning the data center operator broadcast a press release announcing that it had provided online retailer RedEnvelope with two years of 100% uptime. “To ensure uptime for key tenants such as RedEnvelope, 365 Main provides modern power and cooling infrastructure,” 365 said in the release. “The company’s San Francisco facility includes two complete backup systems for electrical power to protect against a power loss. In the unlikely event of a cut to a primary power feed, the state-of-the-art electrical system instantly switches to live backup generators, avoiding costly downtime for tenants and keeping the data center continuously running.”

Quite a boast. And one that was made absurdly ironic a few hours later when a power outage in downtown San Francisco interrupted 365′s theoretically uninterruptible power supplies and disabled RedEnvelope and a host of other Web sites.

The outage, which began at about 2 p.m. PDT, knocked a who’s-who of Web 2.0 outfits offline for a good hour or so. How is that a company that touts itself as the operator of “the world’s finest data centers” failed its clients so miserably? Said Miles Kelly, 365 Main’s vice president of marketing, “I don’t know.”

Truly an unfortunate turn of events for 365 and one sure to give its PR team nightmares for years to come.