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Carl Camera

ViPR for The Masses

I wonder if there are folks out there that perhaps think the custom font headings on this blog and on Vine Type and Vine Branches are nice, but that's not enough of an incentive to move off of their current content management system. And, as I demonstrated in an earlier post it's possible to stream custom fonts for another site from my server.

Is this a business opportunity?

I am considering doing just that. Meaning, I would serve up custom image text for your site. And in true 37signals management style, nothing is coded yet and I don't know exactly where things will eventually end up. So we would learn together.

My thoughts on how this would work:

  • You would email your own True Type Font file to me, if I don't have it
  • You would choose the size, color and opacity of the font and background
  • You would specify PNG or JPEG format
  • Your website would construct image tags that looked like this

<img src="z.com/...?img=4|Your Article Title" alt="..." />

  • The z would be a domain that would host the service
  • The 4 would be your account number
  • My server would look up the font definition from your account number
  • My server would stream back the image "Your Article Title" using your font file and definition

There would be no charge for the test market group. Eventually, I guess, I would switch to a subscription model once we get things nailed down. Of course, there's no obligation to roll-over to any pay-for service.

Leave a comment below if you are interested. And if I've forgotten something, I'd appreciate any insight to this process you may have. I'll work with you to get things going and we'll see where this leads.

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