Marketing Studies

Rok: John, for those of our readers that don't know:
1. What actually is RSS?
2. What is direct-to-desktop publishing and marketing?
3. What tools can people use to "read" direct-to-desktop channels?
4. And perhaps most important, how can you actually get people to start using direct-to-desktop tools and channels and "subscribe" to yours?

John: Well, I could give you a very technical explanation of what RSS is, but you don't need to understand all the geek stuff to effectively use RSS. All you need is a good direct-to-desktop system like Quikonnex that takes care of all the technical stuff for you.

RSS means Really Simple Syndication and that is its power for publishers. How that actually works at the programming level you don't need to know. I certainly do not understand it myself. But I certainly know how to use it effectively.

There are a lot of aggregators - RSS readers - available. Most of them require a download and a fair amount of configuration to set up. That is a drawback in getting people to use and subscribe to RSS feeds. That's why Quikonnex came up with QuikView, their browser-based RSS reader that also serves as a bookmark server. There is no download, only a bookmark you add to your browser favorites tool bar that opens a side bar in your browser that stores your RSS feed subscriptions and makes them available for reading in your main browser window. QuikView is available here.

How do I get people to subscribe to my newsletter. The two main things I do is write the best, most informative content I can. When I post my articles to my channel, Quikonnex has their system set to ping weblogs.com, THE best blog directory on the Internet. Weblogs has a VERY high Google ranking, and that means any changes they accept get indexed almost immediately by Google. This is the core of what I do to build my ranking. That drives targeted traffic to my newsletter. There are other things I do, but those are not for general viewing, only for my readers alone.

As far as getting other publishers to switch to direct-to-desktop publishing, and especially to join Quikonnex, you answered that question in your very first question when you called me an "evangelist." I am very much committed to Q as a product and as a community. That comes through in almost everything I write.