Audio is probably the cheapest way to use multimedia for your SBDC. The only real need is a headset with a microphone, which many of us already have in our possesion due to Skype and other voice over internet protocal (VOIP) programs. If not, they can be picked up between fifteen and fifty dollars at any store that sells electronics. Unlike Skype, if you are making audio recordings for a website or podcast you will need to edit them. There is free software that can do this admirably, most of them even allow you to do separate tracks and merge them into one. Thus, you can add background music or have several different people in several different locations record different parts and merge them into a single continous file. Of all the ones I have used Audacity is by far my favorite. It works on PCs & Macs and allows you to both edit & record in the same window, which makes it easy to learn, but there are many others options.

Once finished, the audio file is as easy to add to a website as an image or document or you can host it outside of your website, using sites like Odeo or Audiofarm, and link back to it.

Here are a few SBDCs using podcasting already.

Georgia SBDC - Raritan Valley Community College SBDC (NJ)