Beginning in the late 1980's (and early 1990's), QuarkXpress and Adobe have tussled to see who would reign supreme and become the top choice in desktop publishing. In the 1980's Aldus Inc. had a desktop publishing program called PageMaker.

Aftewards, QuarkXpress Inc. released QuarkXPress, which become Aldus's main competition. Throughout this ongoing saga, QuarkXpress became victorious in the 1990's when PageMaker could not keep up with the competition.

In 1995, Aldus was bought out by Adobe, but PageMaker was not to become Adobe's main goal—they had their sights set elsewhere. They had other ideas up their sleeve. Since QuarkXpress become victorious, they slowed production of their software, and updates slowed too. Many years later, Adobe came to release InDesign, which was meant to be the "QuarkXpress Killer".

Adobe has made many successful applications. If it is for world wide web, or print they seem to have covered everything. Adobe InDesign adds to Adobe's high-end lineup of programs. Many who currently use other Adobe products, such as Photoshop, or Illustrator, will notice the similarity in interfaces. This makes it great for switching from one program to the next, because many of the tools are the same. A great example of this is that you cannot take an Adobe Photoshop file into QuarkXpress, but you can do this with Adobe InDesign.

Those who are working on switching from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign. however, have faced difficulties in adjusting to the new layout and manner by which things work. If you are a die-hard QuarkXpress user and you do not feel like giving Adobe InDesign an opportunity, then you might just want to recosnider that. 

Many users are changing over from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign because there is a need in the market for a solution that works. With Adobe dropping new products with great new features every couple of years, you will always be ahead. To be fair, QuarkXpress has been the industry standard for desktop publishing for a long time, and it is a great layout application. I guess it really all boils down to personal preference in the end.

Like PC vs. Mac, it comes down to how you like the feel about all the pros and cons.

With Adobe striving to do new and better things all the time, I feel Adobe InDesign is the best choice.

If you are someone that uses QuarkXpress, it is a good idea for you to take a look and get familiar with InDesign. This goes the same for Adobe Dobe InDesign users, learning a bit about QuarkXpress won't hurt you, it can only help you as you move forward.

Editors and copywriters working away in the small press biz sometimes have a difficult time understanding the differences between Marketing, Advertising, PR and Branding (as well as their importance). Marty Neumeier's illustrations—taken from his book "ZAG: The #1 Strategy of High-Performance Brands"—provide the best explanation we've seen:

I'm going to help Joost keep their marketing budget small. Seems like an interesting product. I'm not sure why, but viral marketing is all the rage these days-it's like it's viral or something. Anyway, I have Joost invitations, so you should get them while they're hot.
 
It's not that I don't like sitting mindlessly in front of a colorful box frittering my brain away, I just do that on the internet instead. Whether wasting time watching cable television or YouTube and Digg is worse, is an academic debate - actually there is probably a PHd dissertation rolling around in there somewhere.

So Joost is pretty much television over the internet. They have deals with MTV, National Geographic, etc.

I have yet to really get under the hood, but it seems pretty interesting. You get to watch shows when you want to watch them, which is the way television should be. Keep in mind Joost is still very beta, thus the invites only - and occasional glitches.

If you haven't gotten your joost invite yet, post here or link here and I'll make sure you get one.