know | Future

MacWorld UK has published the results of a poll where of 776 readers 63% said they would stick with InDesign. My first surprise is that there were so many of the readership, which I assume is mostly UK, that has switched to InDesign, unless that 63% reflects those that are using both as has been my experience here in the US with my clients. The other surprising tidbit is that many users are warming up to Quark as a company and feel that they now provide better support than Adobe. I don’t know about you, but my experiences with Quark as a company have always been rather painful.

I also got a notification today that Quark has released a beta version of a universal binary of Quark 7, so it is obvious that they will ship way before Adobe’s vague “in 2007″ promised ship date for universal binaries of CS3.

For all your Quark vs Indesign news, check out this site, there is a blog for everything.

Props for the image to bronzefinger.com

Tivo today has announced today the release of Product Watch. This new capability will allow users to select favorite categories or brands and TiVo will deliver ads that match the criteria to their main menu. The service has been designed with the participation of many advertising entities including IPG, OMD The Richards Group as well as Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of the cable operator (I guess this means that the partnership between them and Tivo is bearing fruit).

General Motors, Sony Pictures, Lending Tree and Kraft Foods are the premium advertisers for their respective categories and will be producing custom content targeted at the Tivo service, presumably longer format video. Though there is no mention of other capabilities, it is safe to assume that this product will make use of existing Tivo capablilities to allow user interaction such as brochure requests etc.

This is really a testing ground for the viability of advertising on demand, where the consumer opts in to receive targeted ads. (more…)