The other ten percent, revisited.

When I started this blog almost two years ago, I had originally intended to focus on the simple question: using tools like App Engine, could the hobbyist and part-time developer put services on the market that would create a nice profit without hosting cost eating it all up, and without maintenance turning the hobby into a full-time career? Since then, I have broadened focus a bit, in particular because the first apps that were released were not exactly encouraging. I had concluded that it was too soon, yet never followed up and revisit the subject.

A few days ago, I needed to get new passport pictures for my German passport. Foreign passports have other size and style requirements than the US, which makes it a bit hard to find a photographer in my area. I did a web search and ran into epassportphoto.com. The business model is wonderfully simple, and while I doubt that they are running on App Engine, I believe they totally could (at least nowadays, where all the necessary APIs are in place):

• have a website that allows users to upload pictures and serve a lower quality version back
  
• use a client-side app (flash? javascript?) to resize a low-quality version of the picture and crop it correctly so that it complies with the requirements of the specific country
• on the server side, perform the operation on the high-quality image and serve the result for download
• as an alternative to download, guide the user through a checkout flow (external payment processing)
• if the user pays, store the picture on the server and send it to an inexpensive photo printing service near the user's location (the last step may happen manually)

The business model is good, and (if done right), one could probably process a lot of photos on App Engine this way before even exceeding the free quota. I don't know what platform those guys are running their service on, but the site was so well made that I felt it more convenient than doing it myself with the Gimp. The price was just right for me -- profit made.

What's your favourite service that you could totally see running on App Engine with today's APIs? Post it as comment to this blog.