We’re fucked
OK, not totally. But this is an interesting development. A startup that will take your designs and turn them into coded web pages by outsourcing it to cheap places around the world (returning your pages within 5 days). Prices from $150. If you don’t like it you don’t pay. TechCrunch: XHTMLized Turns Your Design into Code
In fact. I think we should start to use them. In fact. We’re saved! Saved from pricey freelancers that is 
As a trend, alongside Spotrunner which does a similar thing with advertising. (Creates bargain basement looking ads and schedules and optimises media placements automatically). It’s interesting to see how some of the ‘low-end’ (and I’m not sure about using that term here) of both the interactive and advertising industries are being made automatable and outsourcable in new ways.
I suppose when you add in PayPal, Google Checkout, Shopify, eBay, etc. It’s just the next wave of technological enabling of small businesses and entrepreneurialism. And I suppose that it could just be compared to the fact that when Desk Top Publishing was made accessible, design shops didn’t die out. But I’m not sure it’s quite the same…
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Wired did an article I think this time last year about graphic design doing the same way.
I think its a great development as it takes the fools out of the marketplace instead of finding your website online and then having to go through finding out if the business is worthwhile.
It’s Dave here. XHTMLized founder. Thanks for your post Iain - the title certainly grabbed me!
As I just mentioned on Techcrunch, XHTMLized aint out to take work away from freelancers. In fact XHTMLized core customer base is freelancers. We have very few direct business clients wanting a page XHTMLized for themselves. Frankly, I’ve never meet anyone outside the web industry would knows what XHTML or CSS is - although my Nan tries hard. So XHTMLized isn’t competing against freelancers at all. Far from it. So we’re not taking work away but providing a resource which makes some people’s job as a designer a lot more enjoyable.
Thanks Dave. I think that’s what’s really interesting about what you’re doing. It has applications for a whole range of people. Even lazy XHTML and CSS programmers. Who, quite frankly, at the rates you are charging could quote a client on their normal dayrate, outsource it, sit at home watching TV then take the $$$.
Not suggesting that there’s anyone who’d do such a thing though
I couldn’t see anything on the site about the people that you employ and any kind of ethical stance. This is something that a couple of my colleagues brought up straightaway and was bugging me a bit.
[…] Ged’s comment reminded me of a great quote that someone once made in my presence. I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them. But I can’t, sorry. It was someone VC-like from around the time that I was working at First Tuesday (it’s all a very different beast now!). […]
Thanks for the feedback. I think I’ll put a ‘Who we are’ page on the site prehaps.
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Well, actually there is another service which is online for 1.5 years; It seems to be 7 times faster and providing more options. http://www.psd2html.com
when you really look at it a designer looking at markup or writing script draws her away from her core specialisation: Design. Its really this gap that this market is emerging from.
If it is offshore even better ( lower cost, faster turnaround!)