SelliQuest, a provider of sales communications solutions for the Life Sciences industry, announced today that all of its products have been upgraded to include podcast capability.

“Our products already provide the kind of subscription-based relationship that podcasts use,” explained Ike Carpenter, SelliQuest’s President and CEO. “We not only believe that this kind of relationship represents the future of marketing, but we can quantify its effectiveness. ”

The Corporate Podcasting Summit, a podcast conference that focuses on business podcasting, has announced plans for events in London, UK and the US East Coast in 2007.

At the inaugural Corporate Podcasting Summit, held in San Francisco, June 2006, there were speakers from Whirlpool, the host of the Disneyland Resort podcasts, BEA Systems and Keane, as well as from technology companies such as Audible, Feedburner, Pheedo and ListenShare.

Summit organizers are looking for a number of case studies, expert speakers, and enterprise podcasters from the public and private sectors for the 2007 shows.

The Stage, a UK trade publication for the entertainment world has partnered with The Podcast Network to bring the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Podcast to podcast listeners around the world.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival features 28,014 performances of 1,867 shows in 261 venues, and features an estimated 16,990 performers.

The podcast is freely available to anyone with an internet connection. New editions of the show will be available to listen to on both The Stage’s and The Podcast Network’s websites and also by saving the MP3 file to your computer, or subscribing to the show.

Yahoo today released a press announcement that announced that renowned British astrophysicist and professor Stephen Hawking has vocalized his thoughts about the fate of the world in an exclusive audio podcast featured at the Yahoo! Search site.

Pretty important stuff to think about.

Unfortunately for the world, Hawking has no clue how the world can survive the next 100 years. Even worse, Yahoo! apparently has no clue what a podcast is.

Major label Warner Brother Records appears to be podcasting traditionally copyrighted music, from well-known artists, Under the Radar. Murmurs and whispers around the podosphere have hinted that Bands Under the Radar, described as “a music podcast featuring unsigned bands and indie artists,” is not “indie” at all, but is in fact a podcast being quietly produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Records.

The podcast features music from “indie bands”, such as Tom Petty, Chris Isaak, Kasey Chambers, Better Than Ezra, Mark Knopfler, Johnny Cash, Loleatta Holloway & Muse – all Warner Brothers artists.

Kami Knake right, the host for the program is New Media Coordinator for Warner Brothers Records, and the podcast is served up by Warner Bros: http://download.wbr.com/wlp/kami/BUTR-Podcast20.mp3 is the latest episode.

In July, the daily reach of YouTube pulled ahead of MySpace. YouTube’s growth has been explosive, going from nowhere a year a go to becoming the sixteenth most popular site on the Web, as measured by Alexa.

The tremendous growth reflects increasing penetration of broadband, more vloggers creating independent video content and YouTube’s ability to tap into viral video distribution.

What do World War II, the US Senate, Viagra & podcasting have in common?One man, former Senator Bob Dole.

Dole, truly a Renaissance man, fought for his country, being gravely wounded in Italy during WWII. Then, he served for his country, as US Senator from the great state of Kansas. More recently, he opened the door to a new century, appearing as the point-man on tv commercials for Viagra.

Now, Bob Dole is talking to seniors about Medicare in a new podcast, Bob Dole on Medicare – 10 Things Seniors Need to Know.

Most women would choose a new iPod over a shopping spree at a clothing store and even over a romantic evening with someone special, according to Women’s Watch: Girls Gone Wired, a study of women and technology by Oxygen Media.

According to Oxygen, a media network for woman, the study shows that the technology gender gap has virtually closed and that the majority of women are hungry, even voracious, for technology. The study shows that a full 79% of the female market is interested in and using technology.

The good news for geeky guys? 77% of the women surveyed would even prefer a new plasma TV to a diamond solitaire necklace. Score!

AOL and CNN have announced new services that take the lead from YouTube and other Internet video sites, letting users post their own content to the sites.

AOL is revamping its video site in an attempt to match popular do-it-yourself Web services like YouTube, while also improving its video-search tool and offering more programming as it tries to win loyal viewers.

“In the past year we’ve seen video has exploded on the Web,” said Josh Freeman, vice president of AOL Video. “We’re trying to integrate all elements,” instead of specializing in user-generated video or movie trailers, or having a video store. AOL’s goal is to get viewers to think about tuning into Internet videos the way they turn on their television, he said.

Podcasting and blogging are two of the most effective tools for generating sales leads in the technology industry, according to a survey of technology marketing executives.

When asked, “Which offers are ‘very effective’ for generating high-quality leads?” marketers in all three areas studied – technology services firms, and business software and hardware – put Blog and the Podcast in the top five.

About a quarter of those surveyed considered podcasts “very effective” tools for generating leads.