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Yahoo finally launched Yahoo! Podcasts in public beta, allowing users to easily search, preview and subscribe to audio content and listen at their own leisure. You can access it at http://podcasts.yahoo.com/. How can it help your business?

What's in it for you?<

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

/b>

Podcasting is obviously all the rage nowadays. According to I ISP Interland's Summer 2005 Small and Medium-sized Business Barometer, 11% of small business leaders are interested in using podcasting as part of their website features.

A forecast based on the dat

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

a on sales of portable digital music players and high-speed Internet penetration by The Diffusion Group released in June 2005 showed that demand for podcasts is expected to reach as much as 60 million users by the end of the decade.

Another interesting fact probabl

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

y worth mentioning is the release of iTunes 4.9 in June 2005, which integrated podcasting for the first time into the music player used by close to 40 million consumers.

Only two days after the release, podcast subscription reached a number probably none of us woul

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

d believe before: one million. Many podcasts received free exposure and got surge of subscribers at that time.

As Yahoo! Podcasts entered the market, this event might very well happen again the second time. I am not a psychic but if you can tap into this publishing

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

medium and be one of the first to immediately get exposure to millions of people searching for very specific content they are interested in, I know only good things will happen to your business. I hope you agree with me.

Why it matters to your business

iTu

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

nes Podcast Directory offers more than 15,000 podcasts and growing quite rapidly at 1,000 a week according to Steve Job, the CEO of Apple Computer. That is just one directory. This may seem like a lot at the first glance but really it doesn't even scratch the surfac

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

when compared to how many websites are currently available on the Web.

With more than 6 million podcast consumers have already listened to podcast in April 2005, there sure are a lot of room to play. If you want a proof, just browse on any popular podcast director

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

y and see how many of them only have a handful items, even on a relatively popular topics.

But really, "Why does it matter to my business?" Well, for the first time there is a way to reach your audience of customers through the use of voice. It's much like your own

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

radio show but listeners can tune in any time they want to.

The power to be able to express emotion and bring personality to your marketing communication can be very powerful. From public relation, customer relationship management, name branding, to generating lea

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

ds and sales, all can be done through the same medium, but more powerful than the traditional text based communication. Imagine these benefits and the ability to get your podcast in front of millions of Yahoo! Podcasts visitors for free.

How to participate

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

You can use existing computer equipment to record your voice or anything audible. Really, podcasting is not limited to talk show but can be in the format of music samples, audio books, and more. A microphone that comes with your computer can do it, but a decent one

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

makes you sound professional.

If you need to edit and mix the sound before publishing, some audio editing tools are available for free. To make a podcast file accessible, you need to upload the audio file to a public web server. In the future we may have alternativ

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

e distribution methods but for now serving it through a public web server is the most common one.

When it's time to publish your podcast, you can use the existing blog software to build a podcast website for the podcast show. Using a blog platform allows you to man

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

ge content easier. Most of them can generate a valid podcast feed to for you. It's such a nice feature, but not compulsory.

An RSS feed carries the podcast audio metadata and syndicate it to the mass. Existing technologies even make the whole process of creating an

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

d publishing the feed almost seamless.

Once you have a podcast ready, all you needed to get listed is to enter the URL to your podcast feed at the Yahoo! Podcasts Publishing page (http://podcasts.yahoo.com/publish). You can even tag it so that others can find your

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

podcast easier.

When to start

While the use of podcasting has gained a significant boost lately, it is not for every market yet. Some industries are better serve through other channels. Yet others mostly consist of users who connected with slower Internet c

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

onnection where regular audio downloads may be more difficult and longer, or simply are not that technical savvy.

You know your market better than me, but you can't never be sure until you test it. The technologies are here, allowing you to start on a shoestring. Y

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

ou may even stop if this is not for you and continue after your market is ready. Whatever it is, just make sure you don't miss the opportunity.

If you decide that podcasting is for you, there are dozens of free resources you can use to start immediately. The sooner

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

you start the better. Your audience may have been waiting for your podcast and if by the time they can't find yours, obviously you'll be missing not only targeted traffic from one of the search engine giants but also prospective customers.

Copyright 2005 Hendry Le

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Digg It - Yahoo! Podcasts - Why It Matters to Your Business

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