The audio file that makes feed a podcast rather than a standard RSS feed is contained in 'enclosure' tag. The easiest way to think of this is as an e-mail attachment.

Although "enclosure" tag is not new to RSS feeds and has been included in RSS v2.0 specification for about four years, podcasting has only really been around since August of 2004.

Webmasters are finding creative ways to provide media-rich content. The syndication aspect and potential increase in audience size are an attractive lure. Listeners benefit from podcasting because, like RSS, podcasting is a means to publish content that ultimately gives recipient control over information they want to see or hear.

Podcasting Resources -

Podcasting Tools - http://www.podcasting-tools.com Podcast Alley - http://www.podcastalley.com PodcastBunker - http://www.podcastbunker.com Podcasting News - http://www.podcastingnews.com

It will be interesting to see how this publishing medium develops. Currently, only technical crowd has endorsed podcasting as a new audio medium, but potential is real and process is not overly complex. With a little time I think this field will develop and prosper.

About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

Website creation and maintenance

Website design I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to design websites, and indeed to create eBay auction description pages. Dreamweaver is a premium web design product, and unless you're going to do serious website design I wouldn't advise you to acquire it.

It comes in boxed form, and Macromedia will channel any UK purchasers to a UK based reseller. The cheapest way in UK is to get it from Amazon. http://www.workwinners.com/nlramdream.htm

Image Manipulation & Optimising I use Paint Shop Pro for picture manipulation and for optimising. This is important for auction pictures, as eBay have a size limit of 50KB on any pictures which you want to upload to their Picture Service.

The authors, JASC, have just released Version 9 of this software. I find Version 8 is perfectly acceptable for everything I want to do, and it's cheaper than Version 9.

You can't now buy Version 8 from author's USA site, which is unfortunate as this was cheapest way of buying product before Version 9 came out.

The good news is that Version 8 is currently half price at author's UK site, as you can see here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpsp.htm

It's available for trial at UK site, and I recommend you test it to see if you can work with it.

Website upload Cute FTP is probably best known FTP software. I have used it for several years and have been very satisfied with software. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrcute.htm

Website hosting ProWebSpace are excellent and reasonable web hosts which I have now been using for over a year. I transferred to them from another host with whom I was having lots of problems. Now, I have a better service, and it's at one third price! Of course, you can get web space for nothing from a variety of ISPs. Take a look at http://www.freeisp.com

You only need companies like ProWebSpace if you intend to "go commercial" in your internet activities. If you do, it's important to have a paid service as this gives you right to kick b**t if ever you experience hosting problems. If you would like to know hosting company who I moved from, email me. If you think you need professional hosting, this is definitely where I would start. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpws.htm

Newsletter and other Mailings

As my newsletter has grown, I've tried various ways of managing my mailing lists. I currently use Press-Manager, and have found their service to be very easy to set-up and to use. It's a web based service, and all mailings are performed from their site. This means there's no software to be installed, I can manage my mailings from any PC and my ISP no longer bears mailing load. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpm.htm

Autoresponding

You may know that use of autoresponders is one of keys to marketing on internet. I use Promasoft, and have found it can easily handle everything I want. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpsoft.htm

I hope this glimpse into systems and services I use has been helpful.

Good luck in your own internet business developments and in your eBay selling.