Podcasting
If you do not have an iPod or an MP3 player, you may never have heard of this term. It’s a new term combing the words iPod and broadcasting. Podcasters down load digital files and transfer them to their iPods and then listen to them at their leisure.
This is the next step in listen-on-demand from audiophiles that many internet users currently download, but are left to listen to them while they are sitting at their computer.
With Podcasting, you can listen while you are on the go, or sunbathing.
According to the Pew/ Internet & American Life project 2005 survey, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_podcasting.pdf
Some 29% of the 22 million people who own iPods or MP3 players download Podcasts. That represents over 6 million people. Men and women are equally likely to download Podcasts, although half the people 18-28 have downloaded Podcasts compared to only 20% of the people over 29 who own MP3 players.
Forrester Research released a report in 2005 called PodCasting “The Future of Digital Audio” that focused on podcasting and satellite radio. According to the report, 12.3 million US household will use their MP3 players to listen to audio Podcasts by the end of the decade
"Consumers want to listen to what they want, when they want, on the device of their choosing" says Forrester Research Vice President Ted Schadler.
Although the amount of podcast users is relatively small right now, Apple has already put a podcasting library in iTunes which lists more than 600 Podcasts about technology and 100 about travel.
The future of Podcasts is unlimited.
One can imagine all kinds of scenarios of people wanting "on-demand" Podcasts, from listening to their favorite radio program, to listening to lectures, or company videos.
While Satellite radio does offer its own on demand and select listening capabilities, it doesn’t meet the "on the go" lifestyle of people today.
Those people who think that Podcasts will stay in the “margins of mainstream” are lacking imagination for this vast commercial application in the future.