Good Things to Social Bookmark
It can be tricky to predict what content will perform well on social bookmarking websites. The interests of our democratic populace are widespread and constantly changing. Webpages, podcasts, and images which are deemed more newsworthy, humorous, or intriguing often steal the spotlight. Knowing how to present content on social bookmarking websites can help internet marketers stand out.

Social Bookmarking Tips

Sound effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds that are used in artistic works to emphasize or express an action, mood, or feeling. Sound effects were initially used in radio dramas, but can be observed more often today in podcasts, theater, films, and television shows. They are often synchronized with certain actions, such as a door's slamming being accompanied by the appropriate noise. Sound effects may also be used in the background of a scene to create anticipation or other emotions.

Production and Use of Sound Effects

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. It seems like all Internet businesses now have RSS feeds available; at least your competitors do. You have finally made the decision that you have to have one. Where do you start?

Steps to Creating & Promoting an RSS Feed

RSS feeds are a great communication medium, and when properly managed, web feeds can bring in significant Internet traffic. RSS feeds should contain compelling themed content with episodic titles that are united in common broad theme. Use RSS feeds as an online marketing and search engine optimization tool. Just as optimizing an HTML web page will increase exposure, so too will an RSS feed that is properly optimized and promoted. Use these simple tips to improve your web feed exposure.

RSS Feed Tips to Help Search Engine Optimization

Just as the second generation of search engines and directories evolved into niche topic specific portals we are seeing the same occur in the area of RSS feed directories and search engines. While some directories are admittedly more niche than others the trend is obvious.

Why Niche RSS Feeds Matter

Considering the ever-increasing support for RSS in online communities, we have compiled a list of resources and products that will benefit webmasters, web surfers and publishers in their quest to understand the power of RSS. RSS has rapidly become an alternative communication venue. In order to understand the full benefits, consider utilizing some of the following tools and resources.

RSS Tools

Although podcasting is new, it is well on its way to becoming a mainstream communication medium. Podcasting, simply put, is audio files that are delivered via RSS. Many people believe that podcasting is solely for the distribution of music files, but really, nothing could be further from the truth. This emerging method of audio file distribution has opened an array of marketing and communication opportunities to businesses. Currently, most who are familiar with podcasting are technically savvy, but it is clear that podcasting will be more than a passing fad as many businesses are adopting podcasting and employing it in unusual yet powerful ways. Podcasting can be used for talk shows, tutorials, music demos, educational training, stories, comedy clips, debates or even foreign language tutorials.

While RSS has had the capacity to include audio files for a few years, only recently have entrepreneurs made the conceptual leap, taking advantage of the new power held within this communication medium. In reality, podcasters cover the gamut; some are professional broadcasters, while others are obvious amateurs.

How Podcasting is Used

XML is a standard that defines how to structure a text document using tags, to store information in a organized way in that document.

RSS follows that XML standard, but goes further....

What is the Difference Between RSS and XML?

Independent artists have long struggled to gain recognition and attract an audience. Without the backing of a major label it can be very difficult for independent artists to obtain radio play time, that is, until now. Podcasting a revolutionary new medium, has opened new distribution channels for independent artists. Podcasting is the process of distributing audio files using the RSS format and has become very popular with the younger generations.

With the use of technology, independent artists have a unique opportunity available, using technology they can significantly expand the exposure of their music.

Why Independent Artists and Musicians Should Podcast

The best blogs and feeds are those that contain unique, fresh, compelling, content. So where do these prolific posters get their ideas? I talked to a handful of bloggers to determine where their inspiration originated for their content.

Not surprisingly, ideas for blog posts or RSS feed items originate or are influenced by other web content. The following are venues for finding your online muse:

How do you get ideas for blog posts and RSS feed posts?

As the masses have adopted RSS as a more mainstream communication medium, Web 2.0 businesses and publishers have adopted unique and unusual tools to manipulate RSS content. Here are just some of the various RSS tools that are currently available...

Unique RSS Tools

Podcasting content comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Businesses are finding many different and creative ways of incorporating podcasts into their business strategies and marketing plans.

Here are just some of the various types of content that businesses are turning into podcasts...

Podcasting Content

Podcasting content comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Businesses are finding many different and creative ways of incorporating podcasts into their business strategies and marketing plans.

Creative Podcasting for Businesses

Tips for creating a blog.
There are no hard and fast rules on how to blog. Having said that, bloggers will likely increase their exposure by following some simple blog guidelines.

1.) Stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won't care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that vinegar takes out stains and that toilet paper rolls make great wreaths. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

Tips for Blogs

Instant Content; Converting a Text Article to a Podcast

We are taught to recycle paper, cans, bottles and plastic but marketers rarely discuss the value of repackaging and repurposing content. Publishers and marketers alike have embraced content syndication and RSS but few have considered the value beyond the actual syndication. Consider an alternative communication channel that reaches a new or different audience.

Text to Podcast

Schools all over the country have flocked to podcasting as a new medium to assist the teaching profession. Professors are using podcasts to instruct students and get their messages out. Podcasting is not restricted to one educational sector, professors at prestigious colleges from Bentley to Purdue have flocked to this medium.

A growing number of professors are recording their lectures, the term coursecasting has been adopted in academia. Podcast lectures are used as study tools, and are available for students who might have missed class. Some podcasts are password restricted to students who are enrolled in that specific class. While other institution's publicly post their podcasts and offer non-enrolled students insight into the class material.

Podcasting Just Might Be the Tool to Revolutionize Education

Great resources for those interested in Audio Recording

More and more companies are using RSS as a means to communicate, so having an RSS feed that is professional and well polished will help differentiate your company from your competition. What makes an RSS feed professional? Follow these simple steps to polish your RSS feed and take it to the next level...

Create Professional RSS Feeds

Common questions about podcasting, itunes, namespace extensions and video podcasting. Feel free to send our webmasters any podcast related questions and we will post the answers in the Podcast knowledgebase.

Podcasting Knowledgebase

How Does it Work?
Publishers and webmasters provide content and news in an RSS feed. Users view the content of interest in an RSS reader or news aggregator. The aggregator or reader contains the collection of feeds that are of interest to the user. As the RSS feed is updated the content in the reader or aggregator updates with the new information. At any point, users can remove a feed from their aggregator or reader and no longer receive information from that source. Ultimately, the user is choosing the news and content they wish to view.

RSS: News You Choose

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy. It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

Measuring RSS Feeds

Blogs have increased in popularity because they provide a steady stream of new and unique content. The only issue presented by this quality of blogs is that it may become difficult for those who run blogs to think of interesting and novel posts. If you have jumped on the blogging bandwagon but suffer writer's block, do not panic: we have created a list of 26 ideas for blog posts.

Great Ideas for Blog Post Topics

I have heard many a blogger say that blogging fills a need. While blogging provides a humanizing effect on news and journaling, it also opens a window into personal lives. The details shared in blogs were once only available to a select group of friends, and while blogging has become common place, it has risks that should not be ignored.

Cyberstalking is a new phenomenon that allows anonymous online stalkers to prowl for victims. Online bloggers traditionally provide personal details about their lives.

The Dangers in Blogging

Lawyers have never been known as a technical bunch, but more and more often you see a lawyer with a palm pilot making appointments and a blackberry for those urgent messages. Electronic gadgets are now common in the courthouses across the US. Lawyers have increased productivity by utilizing technology so it should come as no surprise that lawyers are using RSS feeds as a means to grow and manage their practices.

Lawyers Use RSS Feeds

Sound effects are an important part of entertainment, often comprising an integral part of vidoes, games, podcasts, movies, and animations. However, the costs and conditions associated with acquiring and using sound effects may be prohibitive for many rising creators of media. Thankfully, royalty free tracks offer an alternative to media producers on a budget.

Royalty free sound effect tracks can be used by anyone. Not only are they legal to use, but in most cases they may be edited, looped, or manipulated by overlaying additional tracks to create another sound.

Royalty Free Tracks

Tips for Helping Your RSS Feed Perform!

In some ways RSS is very similar to HTML, the language commonly used to create websites. Just as with HTML, webmasters using traditional search engine optimization tactics when creating an RSS feed will find that their RSS feed receives additional exposure and interest.

Simple steps to optimize an RSS feed for search engines:

Search Engine Optimization for RSS

Many webmasters have realized the benefit of using RSS to dynamically update websites. This means that the website content automatically changes when the RSS feed is updated. This allows for webmasters to serve dynamic content or a mixture of static and dynamic content on their website.
Syndication

Often, publishers, interested in expanding their base, will allow other webmasters to republish the contents of an RSS feed. Content providers that allow for syndication, receive additional exposure, and the webmasters serving the content, will generally see web traffic increase as a result of the new content. RSS feeds can be syndicated or displayed using a variety of different methods. Depending on the web host, server configuration, and the intent of the publishers, a variety of different syndication tools exist.

Converting RSS to HTML

Sound effects are often used to compliment and enhance artistic presentations, whether they be podcasts, videos, or other audio/visual productions. Royalty-free sound effects are typically non-exclusive and can be used by anyone who purchases them. Professional sound effects can give a podcast or production a more professional sound. However, many new producers may not realize that sound effects have copyrights, and in many cases it is illegal to use a sound effect that you happen to find on the web without properly licensing it.

Sound Effects; The Power of Audio

For the non-technical folks, podcasting is simply a means of syndicating and distributing rich-media files via the Internet. The content contained in a podcast can vary significantly, from a song, to a educational lecture, to a political debate, to just about anything else. One great thing about podcasting is the wide variety of content formats it can contain. And unlike radio or television broadcasts, the recipient can listen or view at their leisure, choosing for themselves when and where they wish to listen or view a podcast.

What Exactly is Podcasting?

Podcasting is a great new medium, but creating a podcast is only half of the work. Promoting a podcast is equally critical to it's success.

1. Educate the Public.
It is important to remember that podcasting is a relatively new technology and not everyone understands or knows what podcasting is. It is particularly important to educate users if your audience is not technical. Not only is it important to explain what a podcast is, but it is equally important to explain how your podcast will help listeners. Instruction on how users can listen to podcasts should also be included.

Tips to Promoting Podcasts

Coming up with ideas for new blog posts on a regular basis can be a challenge, even for the most prolific writers. Experience shows that readers tend to favor certain types of posts more than others. Here are some popular types of blog posts that you might want to use for those times when inspiration simply does not strike.

Lists

Lists are loved by readers. Top 10 lists, lists of top resources, lists of tools, lists of important dates, etc. Really, just about any type of list will tend to be very popular with blog readers. And you can easily craft lists from popular posts and other resources.

Tips for Blog Posting

RSS is a standard for syndicating content on the Internet. RSS feeds are used in a variety of ways to distribute all types of content via the Internet. The benefits for individuals subscribing to RSS feeds have resulted in a rapid growth and adoption rate. Software and tools have made RSS feed creation and management easy, even for non-technical individuals, which has also fueled the growth of RSS feeds.

Create RSS | Make RSS Feeds

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a new way to broadcast corporate news and structured information. RSS offers a quick, easy corporate communication channel. The RSS contents are published as a feed and the feed's content keep customers, partners and journalists abreast of corporate news and information. The RSS feeds are read using a tool referred to as a news aggregator, or an RSS reader. The aggregator periodically checks to see if the RSS feed has been updated. As the feed is updated, new information will automatically appear in the RSS reader.

RSS Innovation

Free Tool to Create RSS Feed Auto Discovery

RSS Filter Script is a PHP script that filters the contents of an RSS feed. The filters can be defined by the publisher so that the resulting RSS feed contains only the information they want. RSSFilter uses rules to filter the items that are included from a feed in the resulting feed.

RecordForAll makes it simple to record audio files, layer audio files and edit audio files for podcasting. Podcasters can record voices, or music files or other sounds.

Create a Professional Quality Podcast Recording

RSS feeds are a great communication medium, and when properly managed, web feeds can bring in significant Internet traffic. RSS feeds should contain compelling themed content with episodic titles that are united in common broad theme. Use RSS feeds as an online marketing and search engine optimization tool. Just as optimizing an HTML web page will increase exposure, so too will an RSS feed that is properly optimized and promoted. Use these simple tips to improve your web feed exposure.

RSS Feed Tips to Help Search Engine Optimization

Whether you do email marketing, publish an RSS feed, or both, you will inevitably have customers that choose to unsubscribe from your communications. However, you may be able to limit the number of customers who do so. According to a recent report by ExactTarget, there are a variety of reasons why a person may unsubscribe. By understanding why customers unsubscribe from various communications, marketers can learn which marketing mistakes to avoid and keep their subscribers.

Why Do People Unsubscribe?

Just as the second generation of search engines and directories evolved into niche topic specific portals we are seeing the same occur in the area of RSS feed directories and search engines. While some directories are admittedly more niche than others the trend is obvious.

Why Niche RSS Feeds Matter?

There are many, many things that separate a "good" podcast from all the rest. Here are a few to consider...
Recording Quality

The quality of the recording is probably the most critical component of a podcast. A good podcast is easy to understand, and should be recorded at a volume level that makes it easy for listeners to hear all that is said.
Sound Balance

Adding background music polishes a podcast, but be careful that the music does not overpower the primary content. The background music should be subtle and not distracting. Create a balance that does not compromise the quality of the recording. Also, be sure that the music is not the focal point of a podcast show, unless the topic is about the music -- the emphasis should be on the primary content, and not on the musical arrangements.

Hallmarks of a Good Podcast

I have heard many a blogger say that blogging fills a need. While blogging provides a humanizing effect on news and journaling, it also opens a window into personal lives. The details shared in blogs were once only available to a select group of friends, and while blogging has become common place, it has risks that should not be ignored.

Cyberstalking is a new phenomenon that allows anonymous online stalkers to prowl for victims. Online bloggers traditionally provide personal details about their lives. As a result, many women that blog are becoming victims. Most people are concerned about children on the Internet and set up rigorous posting guidelines for children, adolescents, and teenagers, but few adults heed the warnings and often do not consider that they too can be targeted.

The Dangers in Blogging

Blogs are now a dime a dozen, and bloggers need to make their blog posts stand out. Developing a blog following is not as easy as it once was. Learn how to write blog posts that attract readers and retain their attention. Follow these guidelines to cultivate readers...

1. Draw Attention

Use titles to attract the reader's attention to the blog post. The title should mimic newspaper headlines and generate interest in the blog post. The title can be controversial, but not to the extent of being misleading. Use action words in the title. Bloggers will often come up with a handful of potential titles for blog posts, and then settle on the title that is best suited to a particular blog post.

Attention Getting Blog Posts

Although podcasting is new, it is well on its way to becoming a mainstream communication medium. Podcasting, simply put, is audio files that are delivered via RSS. Many people believe that podcasting is solely for the distribution of music files, but really, nothing could be further from the truth. This emerging method of audio file distribution has opened an array of marketing and communication opportunities to businesses. Currently, most who are familiar with podcasting are technically savvy, but it is clear that podcasting will be more than a passing fad as many businesses are adopting podcasting and employing it in unusual yet powerful ways. Podcasting can be used for talk shows, tutorials, music demos, educational training, stories, comedy clips, debates or even foreign language tutorials.

While RSS has had the capacity to include audio files for a few years, only recently have entrepreneurs made the conceptual leap, taking advantage of the new power held within this communication medium. In reality, podcasters cover the gamut; some are professional broadcasters, while others are obvious amateurs.

How Podcasting is Used

Syndication is conceptually simple. It allows publishers to distribute content that can be displayed in another location or context. Using RSS, publishers are able to easily create and disseminate content feeds that include news headlines, blog summaries and related links. RSS is the defined syndication standard that has become mainstream. All types of information are now available in a syndicated format.

Promote A Blog

Optimize your audio files to increase their popularity, just as you would optimize a website. Audio search engines are becoming more advanced as audio files become more commonplace on the Internet. Here are some tips to optimize your audio offerings...

1. Optimize Landing Page

Create a landing page for the audio files. The landing page should explain the audio content and encourage subscriptions. Outline the steps the visitor should take in order to subscribe or listen to the audio file. Make an effort to interact with the visitor on the landing page, and make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe or listen to your podcast.

Audio File Optimization Tips

Many equate RSS with blogs and little else. However, we have found that RSS is multi-faceted and has a scope far beyond blogs. Take a look at these 100 ways that RSS is being used in real world situations:

100 Uses of RSS Feeds

Videos that explain audio recording, transitions and podcasting.

Audio Recording Video Tutorials

Everyday more and more websites, news services and blogs are adding RSS content. RSS is a method of syndicating content.The concept of aggregating content in one central location or repository is very appealing. Consumers have become tired of push technology, RSS allows users the flexibility to regain control of their content. RSS feed creators provide content without forcing it on consumers. In fact with RSS consumers are able to choose the content they wish to view.

Create RSS Feeds | Make RSS Feeds

You have an RSS feed and you have worked hard to get the word out. According to your logs you have subscribers! Now the hard part: how to retain the subscribers to your RSS feed. Follow these simple steps to insure that your subscriber base will grow.

13 Tips to Maintaining an RSS Feed Subscriber Base