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OK, so where do I find some cool podcasts to listen to?

Podcasts are generally “resident” as URLs – uniform resource locators – which means effectively they simply live on (or arguably “are”) Web pages.

But there is nothing to obviously distinguish a Webpage that is (or contains) a podcast from one that doesn’t, any more than a URL will tell whether a page is a store, a photo gallery, or only text.

Since podcasts are not yet “everywhere,” you may wonder how to get started listening to them, where to find them, what hardware and software you might need (or want) and so forth.

The short answer is that to listen you don’t need any special software other than a program capable of playing mp3 formats – such as Windows Media Player on your computer. You do need special software to find, download and organize your subscription feeds.

A whole class of podcast-oriented software has been developed, and if you are not planning to use an iPod and limit yourself to the one-click options available for synchronized download from iTunes itself, you may want to look into this.

The category of software is sometimes called a “podcatcher” but increasingly the more generic “receiver” is in use and often the software is called a “retriever,” and like the dog, it does just what it sounds like!

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BOILED APPLE PUDDING.

3 apples
3 eggs
1/4 pound of breadcrumbs
1 lemon
3 ounces sugar
3 ounces of currants
1/2 a wine-glassful of wine nutmeg, butter and sugar as necessary

Pare, core and mince the apples and mix with the bread crumbs, nutmeg, grated sugar, currants; the juice of the lemon and half the rind grated. Beat the eggs well, moisten the mixture with these and beat all together, adding the wine last; put the pudding in a buttered mold, tie it down with a cloth; boil one hour and a half and serve with sweet sauce.

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Once you've completed an exhaustive mini E-Book project, giving it away to your subscribers for free probably isn't the most attractive idea you've ever had. But if it isn't, you will want to consider the following: what works best in the long run is often what works worst in the short run (at least in terms of revenue generation).

You might be anxious to milk every last cent out of your subscribers by making a desperate attempt to get every last one of them to buy your mini E-Book, but ultimately, that leaves you with a little cash, but an opt-in list that essentially has not changed in size at all.

Instead, you will want to look at your list for its true potential, which as Jimmy D. Brown puts it, is that it is your most valuable asset for finding business partners. Sure, the people you on your list are learning from you, but that doesn't mean they aren't experts themselves – or at least really skilled, even if they haven't yet found a way to make money with those skills.

So next time you create a mini E-Book, consider giving it away to your subscribers, rather than charging them to buy it. You may end up with an impressive amount of exposure without paying a dime. You may also find out that giving it away to your subscribers may prompt some of the experts on your list to come out of the woodwork and offer you partnerships.

Additionally, if you use clever backend sales techniques, you can give it away for free and still make money. For instance, your E-Book could be a really compelling method to do something, but an ultimately incomplete method. This means that your subscribers will be moved by the material, but they will have no other option but to take action when they are finished, rather than putting what they learned into action. You can then direct that action towards buying the product that completes the idea or method.

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The sixth tip is about adding an audio intro to your site. How many times have you been surfing the Internet, and had three of four windows open looking at different sites. Suddenly you hear someone start talking. What does that do? It gets your attention, doesn’t it? You know what it makes me do? It drives me to find the little x at the top of the window to close that window as quickly as possible.

So what you want to do is make it a permission-based audio intro, meaning you need to put a link on your site that says “Listen to (catchy headline here).

The key is to get them to click on the link that lets them listen to your intro, so they HEAR what you’re saying. This means people are going to be looking at and reading your site while they are listening to you speak. So you need to use attention-grabbing words to keep them listening.

Don’t use a ho-hum voice with a dry intro. You want to get these people excited. Excitement is one of those viral emotions. You can pass it on to those around you. So speak like you’re really excited about what you’re saying.

Audio intros shouldn’t be long either. Keep your audio intros short and sweet. Try to say what you need to in less than two minutes.

The “big guys” have been using this tip for a while now, and it’s really working. You’ll see more and more of this as time goes on.

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Regardless of where it comes from, Spyware sends information about you somewhere.

Some will try to “hijack” or take over your Web browser to “force” you to go to web sites you don’t want to visit, like the viruses known as worms. Sometimes these sites will look like “legitimate” sites – for example, major search engines. The reasons why people want to drive traffic are complex (as a web marketer you may be familiar with some of them) but the most important thing is you don’t want your machine to be a pawn in someone else’s web marketing game without your permission.

You may not be able to entirely stop spyware from entering your system, but you can minimize it through a combination of behaviors and browser settings, then find and remove it with an easy-to-use variety of software tools.

Because spyware is continually downloaded onto your machine, it needs to continually be found and removed.

And the “definitions” update is even more important here than with virus programs, and, importantly, is often not automatic – so you will need to update the definitions yourself every few days.

While all the major security software companies are introducing spyware stopping products, and the latest releases of the major web browsers have some anti-spyware functionality, as of late 2005 the two best pieces of anti-spyware software remain FREE for personal use, and are quite inexpensive for business use.

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So I’ll set up a mini-course on my autoresponder with my content.

I like mini-courses better than just a free report to get them to opt in, because the free report is a one shot deal. I want to “train” them to be on the lookout for my emails, to anticipate them and open them.

That way when (or if) my offer shows up in their inbox, it may have only been a day or two since they last heard from me, not weeks or months ago when they got their free report (in that case they’ll likely forget they signed up for your list and promptly delete your offer, unsubscribe, or report it as spam).

If I have a free report I want to use, I’ll simply break it up for my mini-course. But as this is a new niche, it’s unlikely I’ll have a report yet.

I’ll then set up some very targeted PPC ads using Adwords. I want to match each ad group to the keywords as closely as possible. Then I turn it all on and start building my list.

So where’s the product, you ask?

Well, at this point, I don’t know for certain how much traffic I’ll get or whether they’ll opt in or not, never mind whether they will purchase my product. I have an idea, due to my research.