Fixmyphotos is a site that allows you to upload photos for retouching, at low rates. The work is apparently done at least in part by human operators, and the turnaround is 48 hrs.
They're in testing on their updated services, and Guy Kawasaki has instructions on how to try out the service (requires you to use Internet Explorer, unfortunately)
Guy's write-up - how to test the site

Of course, they avoid saying "snail mail" - but these folks offer to turn your email into an actual (physical, like you can hold in your hand) letter.

It wasn't that long ago that "mail" meant the physical kind by default, instead of the other way 'round...

Anyhow, cloud-computing (i.e. having your data and services reside somewhere "out there" rather than on your desk) gives birth to its antidote here - a service that pulls stuff (correspondence in this case) out of the cloud and delivers it into the hands of non-cloud-connected recipients.

The truly mind-bending part is that firing up a lot of technology at both ends and the middle is perceived as easier than getting out a pen, paper, stamp and envelope (where'd I put those stamps...?)
Link

These people claim to have created an ad banner creation and submission engine.

This looks quite similar to what SpotRunner has done with cheap cable advertising.

AdReady has made creating a sophisticated online advertising campaign incredibly easy.
Select a performance ad template and customize it for your business in minutes.
Target your audience, set your budget, and access the web's largest publishers with only a few clicks.
Watch your website traffic and your sales grow while leveraging AdReady's optimization technology.

Create your custom ads at no cost — all you need is a standard AdReady account (which is free).

Minimum campaign is $100, and there are no set-up fees, no minimum term and no contracts.

You pay only for the media campaigns you run — a major credit card is all you need to get started.

You can also upgrade to a premium account, giving you the power of dedicated account management from the AdReady experts.

It's official - banners are commodities.
Link

Thanks to Rob Webber for this one!


Stanford University hosts this site, which makes vector art from pixel art:

This site converts bitmap images to vector art - it's an online auto-tracer.

Just upload your image and we will vectorize it for you.

They're claiming a higher rate of shape accuracy and color identification than Adobe's and Corel's tools.
Granted that you can misuse any tool you care to compare with a few quick settings, I'd want to actually test this - but frankly I thought this software category was dead and buried, and I'm glad to see the Smart Guys giving each other some competition.
Boing Boing post

Stanford link

Wired's Chris Anderson has been ruminating on the economics of Free or Nearly Free on his blog.
Here's one insightful post on the various ways Free has been working - from RyanAir's 5 Pounds airfares to Google's free-to-consumer services.
It's beginning to look like all businesses need to think hard about what happens when their product approaches Free - through automation, commodotization, competition & outsourcing, whatever. The real issue seems to be - what exactly is your product anyway?

In the creative services business, production costs have been tumbling downward for some time - since the desktop publishing revolution at least (one could argue this has been going on since Gutenberg put the monks out of business...)
While costs have gotten stuck temporarily at various points (remember service bureaus?) the market has always found a way around the chokepoints, such that individual operators with minimal equipment could do tasks that were formerly difficult and expensive.
Now I'm looking at at the next stage - systems that can empower the whole production process, at least for print, and remove the barriers between creative and execution.
This will have the side-effect of destroying a revenue stream. Well, it happened to type, and it's only a matter of time before it happens to page makeup too.

What part of your business could be produced and distributed Free? What will happen when you can't charge for that any more?

Link

Interesting thread about how the convenience and speed of online commerce are raising expectations at retail.

A variant of this came up around the office the other day - have people learned to expect higher or lower costs as a result of technology? We accept paying a fee to use an ATM, but expect free shipping.
What does this mean for pricing of automated services such as our online creative customization technology? Can we charge more 'cause it's better, or do people expect things to be free when a machine is doing the work?

Adverlab post
Retail Media News piece

Adobe's Bruce Chizen confirms - Adobe's planning to move to web-based applications over the next decade. Maybe this'll make the InDesign server more robust?

My fondest wish is that, in moving their core applications server-side, they make them more interoperable too.
They're already shown some awesome online editing capabilities - Photoshop Express and Premiere Express for example.
Adobe's advantage in this space is that they already have a complete suite of powerful tools, and they've started the work of integration in a very savvy way.

Production 2.0, anyone?

Link

PDF approval meets Xinet hosting - apparently Aprimo's got it working for 8.0. Comments are saved into the PDF, and also imported into the Aprimo database, all without using WebDAV.

Link