by Tom Ogg

I was flying back from South America on a rather long flight that started in Manaus and took me to Sao Paulo before turning north to Dallas and finally to my home in San Diego. As always, I had my Bose headset and my trusty iPod. I had loaded it with a couple of thousand songs, about 50 podcasts and some TV shows that my son wanted me to enjoy.
After I had watched a few TV shows, an MTV video, played “Brick” (one of the games on iPod) and then scrolled though thousands of songs to find just the artist I was looking for, the gentleman and his wife who I was sitting next to asked me, “What the heck is that thing, a GameBoy or something?”
I was shocked to discover that someone didn’t know what an iPod was. How could anyone live without one? Then it hit me. There are probably a bunch of travel agents who don’t have an iPod.

Poddin’
An iPod is like a dinky computer with great sound and video. Mine is 30 GBS worth of storage and video. That’s a lot! Just like a computer, you store stuff in hierarchical files that are accessed by using the iPod’s touch screen. It is simply the best way for a traveler to entertain one’s self while flying (or doing anything else for that matter). An iPod is actually an MP3 and MP4 player. These are digital formats for audio and video, respectively. There are many such players, but I would suggest that you purchase the most current iPod that you can. They are easy to use and once you start, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.
By using iTunes (www.itunes.com) or (www.apple.com/itunes/) you can record your CDs into iTunes and then transfer them to your iPod, or you can purchase music one song at a time and download it. You can purchase music videos and TV shows and download them to your iPod, as well. You can also access podcasts and audiobooks that you can download. Using iTunes is easy, fun and inexpensive.
If you find a podcast that you would like to listen to, simply click on it and it will be downloaded into iTunes and filed under podcasts. The next time you update your iPod, it will be transferred to your podcast files. iPods are what most people listen to podcasts with.

Bloggin’
If you read my last two articles about “Blogging for Fun and Profit,” you already have a blog and are well down the road to turning your blog presence into another opportunity for your clients to find you. If you started your business blog with Typepad (www.TypePad.com), you have a very wonderful feature at your disposal.
RSS 2.0 is what Typepad uses to deliver feed. RSS 2.0 introduced an “includes” tag so that other file formats could be imbedded in the feed and delivered to subscribers.

Feedin’
Your Typepad blog gives you the opportunity to offer an RSS and/or XML feed for your clients with an RSS reader. Feed is very important for you because your clients can subscribe to it free of charge and then open your feed as it is delivered. Feed works kind of like E-mail, but there is no possibility for spam, viruses or other inherent problems that E-mail has been corrupted with. Because a separate RSS or XML reader reads the feed, there is no chance that your messages will be put into a spam folder by the reader’s E-mail client.
If your agency offers the service of notifying clients of special offers and deals, you could easily have a separate blog for each product category (cruise, Hawaii, Mexico and so on) and offer feed from each blog to your clients. Clients interested in learning about cruise deals would subscribe to your RSS feed from your cruise deal blog and every time you posted to the blog, it would show up in their feed. It is really very simple. If you want to subscribe to an RSS feed just to see what it is all about, simply go to www.cruisereviews.com/RSSFeed.htm and follow the simple instructions to subscribe to the Cruise News Blog’s Feed. It is free of charge, only takes a minute and will introduce you to a whole new world.

Castin’
While there are a ton of different file formats, MP3 for audio and MP4 for video are what iPods use to create their magic. The ability to create an MP3 audio file and deliver it to millions of people for absolutely free using RSS 2.0 is what sparked the huge interest in Podcasting. Podcasting is simply delivering audio files using a MP3 file format.
Creating the audio file on your computer is easy. All you need is a basic mic (figure around $15) and some free software that you can download at www.audacity.sourceforge.net Audacity is an easy to use sound editor with a very short learning curve. It was evolved in the open source movement and is absolutely free to download and use. It allows you to record and then edit your podcast and then fine-tune it. If you have a great voice and always wanted to be a broadcaster, this is your opportunity. Videocasting is the same as podcasting, only the MP4 file format is used and video rather than audio is distributed.
Podcasting offers many opportunities to communicate with folks. You can create a podcast and deliver it over and over again without cost and this offers a wide array of possibilities. Unless you have professional broadcasting experience and a great voice, I would not recommend recording your own podcasts for business purposes. Imagine trying to listen to a radio station that is being run by an amateur DJ. You would probably listen for a minute and then move on. If you see a use for podcasts in your business, I would recommend hiring a professional to develop one for you.

Tom Ogg is editor and publisher of www.CruiseReviews.com and www.PortReviews.com.