With the economy still slow and the politicians promising that tax rebate checks will start arriving shortly, I thought I'd do my part to provide a little economic stimulus. If higher gas costs aren't eating up all of your spare change, here are a few suggestions for cool technology tools to spend your rebate on:

GPS: I know the ability to figure out where you are and where you are going is supposed to be what makes a man a man; still, I finally got tired of circling the metropolitan Washington streets trying to locate our client's offices. "Table for One" is what I call my Garmin Nuvi GPS, and it's what's been getting me to my appointments on time and a lot less stressed these days. If you never get lost, keep navigating on your own. Otherwise, it's time to give up your pride and get the GPS.

Powering Up on the Road: With Hodgson's new Boston location, I'm on the road a lot more. Inflight's USB Power Unit uses power from the audio headphone jack in standard airplane seats to recharge devices with a USB power connection—like iPods, BlackBerrys and Gameboys (ok, so that last one is for the boys on family vacations). Callpod's Chargepod, charges up to six devices at once, so I only need to pack one recharger when I'm traveling.

Music on the Move: Samsung's YA-BS300 is an ultraportable Bluetooth speaker, slightly longer than a business card, and is perfect for connecting to your laptop and then chilling out to your favorite music in your hotel room. It also connects to a Bluetooth cellphone to make an instant speakerphone—great for conference calls on the road or hands-free talking.

Vacation Documentary 101: Got a collection of photo/video CDs hand labeled in Sharpie marker to document your family vacations? This year, step up your game with Primera Technology's Signature Z1 printer—it prints directly on CDs/DVDs and lets you create hand designed labels that will be the envy of any major recording label, or at least will earn you some "Oohs" and "Ahhs" when you pull out the vacation photos next year.

So, get out there—spend some money.

I'll admit I've always thought of podcasts more as something that ‘tweens and MySpacers can put up and play with in their spare time, rather than having a legitimate business use. But, a recent podcast marketing study, is proving me wrong.

The study shows that ads in podcasts are three times as effective as traditional online video ads. Industry benchmarks of unaided ad awareness are 21 percent for streaming video and 10 percent for television—the awareness for podcasts was an impressive 68 percent on average. Aided recall was even higher, at 89 percent on average. The bottom line is that there was a 73 percent increase in the likelihood that a consumer would use/buy an advertised product after being exposed to an ad in a podcast.

In 2007, podcasts reached 8.5 million users in the US, and it's expected that number will rise to 65 million by 2012. With that kind of success rate for advertising and that size potential audience, I might need to rethink my podcast perception. Of course, the success rate for podcast ads is connected to the fact that good podcasts have narrowly focused audiences, high content relevance, host involvement and appropriate ad formats.

If you are starting to look at podcasts as a marketing vehicle for your organization, here are a few tips on how to be effective:

1. Plan a schedule. An engaging podcast is more than a "one-off" episode. Each podcast needs to be planned in advance and launched on a consistent day and time. If you broadcast weekly, publish a monthly schedule so listeners get a sense of what to expect.
2. Make it RSS-accessible. A downloadable mp3 file is only one component of a podcast. Enable people to subscribe via RSS so they can retrieve updates automatically.
3. Keep it short. It's not a one-hour radio show. Unless you have a strong feature, don't press listeners' patience. A typical episode of The Wall Street Journal's "Your Money Matters" podcast lasts a little over five minutes.
4. Segment your podcasts. Think "Client Talk," "Tip of the Day," "Your Questions Answered," that kind of thing. Content segments give listeners bearings and yield a sense of familiarity with your podcast's ebbs and flows. This is key to the success of any series.
5. Simplify podcast management. Keep your recording process and RSS feed management simple, so you can focus on developing content (the tough part). Garageband, Gcast.com, ClickCaster.com and Audacity are the most popular programs for recording podcasts. FeedforAll helps with editing, and its simple GUI eases management of RSS feeds.
6. Submit your podcast to popular directories. iTunes lets users submit podcasts from within its program; pinging services like Autopinger and Pingoat will submit podcast updates to major blogs and search engines. Burn your podcast with Feedburner, which allows you to notify listeners about new episodes through email updates.
7. Build a compelling podcast website. Any ad campaign or product launch should have its own web destination, loaded with up-to-date and relevant information. Your podcast is no different. Keep the site updated with your podcast schedule, and website-only tidbits, to build listener loyalty.
8. Don't waste time hard-selling. Don't discuss your product or service all the time. When you do, invite a client or user to speak frankly about it on air. It's okay to promote a website if the site contains content relevant to the episode.

And once you've taken all these steps, make sure you keep metrics on your progress. Google Analytics will track users and audio file downloads, Feedburner will measure the number of unique subscribers per episode, and Podtrac and Volomedia can help you gain deeper insight in behavioral and demographic data.