12/29 The Art Institute of Chicago has partnered with MuseCast to launch a podcast series exploring the museum's collection and programming.

12/27 Live Poker has launched a series of audio podcasts and will host an archive of past shows that provide poker strategies, tips and tricks.

12/25 Santa's Journal offers the latest podcast updates from the North Pole.

12/21 Dow Jones Online has selected blinkx to index video clips from The Wall Street Journal Online, MarketWatch.com and Barron's Online enabling users to search hundreds of hours of business and financial news, analysis and interviews. • Britain's Buckingham Palace has announced that Queen Elizabeth II will podcast her traditional Christmas message to the Commonwealth for the first time. • Boston Catholic Television will upgrade its website to include Cardinal Sean O'Malley delivering daily mass in English, Spanish and Portuguese as podcasts.

12/19 Popular metanews site Digg.com has upgraded its interface to track news as well as audio and video podcasts. • StreetIQ.com will be exhibiting at the upcoming 2007 CES in Las Vegas with planned demos of its mobile, video and corporate podcasting initiatives. • The editors of Bride magazine will be hosting a series of podcasts to discuss trends, advice and ideas for the wedding scene. • dominKnow has launched LCMS 5.1, a service that hosts, tracks and deploys podcasts for e-learning applications.

12/18 iBizRadio has announced the introduction of the Internet's first business podcast directory. StreetIQ.com, which was launched 15 months ago, also positions itself as the first business podcast directory on the Internet.

12/15 Network Appliance has launched its first TechTalk podcast hosted by Elisa Steele, the company's vice president of Worldwide Integrated Marketing, and featuring company founder, executive vice president, and recent CRN Hall of Fame inductee Dave Hitz to discuss the future of enterprise storage.

12/14 Apple has released the .Mac Podcast Pack, a software package that lets users add professional music jingles and voiceovers to their GarageBand-generated podcast projects. • DivvyCast has partnered with IRS Distribution to provide software that lets independent record labels create advertising-ready podcasts from existing songs, interviews, concerts, and DJ mixes. • American Idol Taylor Hicks will be the first celebrity to be featured on Artist Voices, the new online video program at GoFish.

12/12 Google Base Beta now includes a podcast section although about half of the entries appear to be images of merchandise for sale. • Mamma.com in conjunction with the Pixsy Media Search Platform has launched a video search engine. • Abraham Paulos reports that Yahoo Video is vying for some of Youtube's video market with its first ever Internet talent show featuring celebrity guest judge Tom Green. With the voting open to the public through midnight (PST), Wednesday, the 13th of December, the winner will be awarded $50,000 and a development deal with Yahoo. The five contestants are from all across the country, ranging from an animator from Chicago (Stanley Sowa Jr.) to a comedian in Hollywood (Ben Grinnell).

12/11 FUSA Capital Corporation has launched the first phase of its international video podcast directory organized by countries and languages.

12/09 Marie Claire has signed Unilever as presenting sponsor for The Masthead with Marie Claire, the magazine's video podcast series which launches on the 2nd of January. • The California Society of CPAs has launched a series of financial literacy podcasts that featuring interviews with CalCPA members and providing tips on how to manage everyday money management issues. • The Orange County Register has partnered with Taldia to produce podcasts using professional voiceover talent to cover the top news stories from OCRegister.com and the Associated Press.

12/07 Pluggd is offering a demo of its audio and visual search that lets users skip forward to the exact part of the file approximated by a heat map. The company also raised $1.65 million from Intel and a group of angel investors. • More than 2.1 million audio and video podcasts were downloaded from its network in November, according to SwitchPod.com. • Microsoft has issued a forecast to sell 1 million of its new Zune music players by June of 2007.

12/06 John Havens, the About.Com guide to podcasting, will be hosting his first TalkCast on the 6th of December at 10pm Eastern.

12/05 The Podcast & New Media Expo has begun accepting registration for its 3rd annual event for audio and video podcasters, digital media creators, and bloggers. • PodShow has launched a new version of the company's PodShow website which lets users discover, create, upload, edit and share video content.

12/04 Samsung has announced the Ultra Messaging i600 smartphone which is powered by Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and supports podcasting, but it will not be available until the first quarter of 2007 and only in Asia Pacific and Europe. • The Public Relations Society of America, Silicon Valley has partnered with PodTech.net to produce Media Predictions 2007 : What's Hot, What's Not, a podcast that features technology gurus discussing the most promising technologies, topics and trends.

12/03 Scott Kirsner of the Mercury News writes about the swinging of the pendulum from amateur to professional content publishing for video and podcasting. • Rocky Mountain Voices has launched Utah Ski and Snowboarding Resort Guide Podcasts covering the conditions at six locations in the state of Utah.

12/01 The Podcast & Portable Media Expo is expanding its reach by changing its name to the Podcast & New Media Expo. • The number of unique users visiting StreetIQ.com has increased 28% to 547,164 in November from October's 425,873, according to FinancialContent, the parent company of StreetIQ.com.