Why did Carolyn and Jim develop Quikonnex?

Quite frankly, because they needed it. The mission of their company, Ebizworks LLC, is to educate people who want to make a living on the Internet. They create innovative one-to-one training videos, on-demand for their clients on a broad range of subjects. They also publish numerous articles on various aspects of Internet marketing, web development, safe surfing, site building and hosting, just to mention a few of the topics they address. But they found it increasingly difficult to deliver their videos and electronic publications.

The growing spam problem was rapidly making email all but useless. SPEWS and other self-appointed spam vigilantes were making delivery of legitimate email nearly impossible, while the spam continued to flow into in-boxes across the globe. ISP and other filters were being tightened to the point that even requested emails were often not delivered. The fear of viruses and worms was causing many attached files to be stripped, thereby preventing delivery of Ebizworks videos to those who wanted and needed them. It was a deepening quagmire.

Then, on 13 January 2003, JL Scott of I-Cop, published her first ezine article about the new bully on the net, Habeas. JL warned that if Habeas was successful with their business model, they would force every electronic publisher to pay them to get even requested and wanted emails delivered. Many smaller ezine and newsletter publishers would probably be driven out of business. That was the final straw!

Almost as soon as they finished reading JL's article, Carolyn and Jim decided that they had to find a new delivery method for their videos and electronic publications. They could not wait for "someone" to solve the spam problem, so they hit Google and started searching. The technology they found with the most potential was the combination of weblogs and RSS/XML feeds. Could that be used as an alternative to email?

All content management systems, the applications used to create weblogs, could certainly handle publication of plain-text articles, but if you know PB&J (Pushy Broad and Jim) you know they would never settle for anything so mundane and restrictive. This is the 21^st century after all, and this the Internet, not the old ARPANET! Their system would have to deliver not only full HTML and graphics, but audio, video and any other multi-media they might want to distribute. But what about RSS and XML? Could that be made to deliver media-rich channels? Most savvy netizens would tell you it couldn't be done. But there is nothing that PB&J like better than a challenge!

Just to keep it interesting, they decided that this would be done as much as possible with open source applications. They found an open source content management system that could handle multi-media, after some extensive tweaking. Then, with some serious, heavy-duty back-end database work, they developed a powerful publishing system that was easy to manage and could gracefully deliver media-rich channels. Not just on the webpage, but IN the feed! They didn't just push the envelope, they shredded it!

But how were subscribers going to be able to get access to the treasure trove of information that could now be delivered using this new system? Back to Google. They found a plethora of RSS newsreader and channel viewer applications available as free downloads. Some of these viewers were cross-platform, some were not, some were browser-based, some were stand-alone, some could only handle one flavor of RSS, (let us skip the ugly RSS wars for this story, gentle reader), some were stripping tags so that only plain text could be delivered. Needless to say, it was a jungle out there!

Enter Awasu! Serendipitously, the first version of this channel viewer was released in February 2003, not long after PB&J began their quest to be free of email. Taka Muraoka, Awasu's creator, has produced a full-featured channel viewer that does NOT strip tags, thus allowing the subscriber to see everything their publisher has to offer, with no interference. It can also handle all flavors of RSS. Plus, it is very easy to use and simple for people to customize to meet their own needs. So, the package appeared to be complete.

Or was it?   PB&J were very serious about getting out of email. But so far, this new system could only communicate from publisher to subscriber. Didn't the subscribers deserve an equal opportunity to talk back? PB&J Googled again. They found the open source communications code they needed to create the QMTP private messenger. But, of course, this was not enough for our intrepid heroes. They also decided that they could make it possible for their publishers to communicate using their favorite flavors of Instant Messaging systems, from within their channels, which they promptly did.

Now was it finished? No, something was still missing. Of course, the statistics! Without email addresses, how were publishers going to know how many subscribers they had, and which articles were generating the most interest among their readers? Publishers would need accurate, up-to-the-minute statistics to help them understand and meet their subscribers needs. By now, you have guessed that PB&J rose to the challenge and developed a dynamic statistical monitoring component to keep publishers up-to-date on how their material is received by their subscribers.

Then, to put the icing on the cake, they generated a system of URLs by which subscribers can share articles as easily as they once shared emails. Using these same URLs, publishers and affiliates are able to market the Quikonnex service to others who are still floundering in the email quagmire.

Developing the Quikonnex publishing system took a lot of thought, time and effort. But Carolyn and Jim believe that is was worth it, because it now allows them to be email-free and thumb their collective noses at Habeas and all the other spam vigilantes who think they can control Internet communications. Quikonnex makes them all irrelevant, and it makes electronic publishing an elegant and media-rich experience, as it should be. As you may suspect, PB&J will not rest on their laurels, they will continue to improve and expand the service to make it ever more powerful and easier to use. Thus ends the first chapter of the Quikonnex story.

signed:
The Qchronicler