HP wants to help digital content creators produce professional print versions without publishers!

HP, like everyone else is throwing themselves at the world of user generated content with a new service designed to help bloggers, digital photographers and others to reproduce their works in print and you don't even need a publisher!

The computer maker has developed tools to allow amateur photographers, small businesses and other customers to connect to an array of printing services using the internet.

HP will take advantage of its sprawling printing technology portfolio to “reconfigure distribution” between content producers and publishers.

By removing the distribution barriers between users who create digital content and those who can turn it into products such as books, calendars and posters, HP hopes to capture a greater share of the more than 46,000bn “pages” of content produced in the world each year.

Now that's the future - one where content creators and artists will be able to control the process from soup to nuts entirely themselves - from content creation, packaging, distribution and marketing. Step, by step - the tools are slipping into place.