My colleage Jason made a comment at the end of his Web 2.0 for Adults article regarding Podcasting. He noted the Pew survey data indcate 7% have “ever done this” - meaning downloaded a podcast. He suggested if podcasting were a stock, he’d “short it.”

But this Pew data is contradicted by Pew’s August 2006 data (published in November 2006), which indicates 12% of Internet users have tried podcasts. If you look at these two data sets and see growth from 7% to 12% over a few months, that looks a little more rosy. Talking with Mary Madden of Pew for my article at the NY Enterprise Report on Web 2.0, we agreed that this translated into >17MM people (based on number of Internet users as a percentage of current census data) who had tried podcasting. 13% of users with more than 6 years of online experience had tried listening, as well as 13% of those making more than $75k a year (up from 7% in February 2006). Those are pretty good demographics if you’re an advertiser looking for an audience.

And while it’s not a perfect metric, I believe its more than the number of Sirius users and XM users according to this Motley Fool analysis. And, unlike satellite, you only need a computer, not an ipod, to get podcasts - (see this video from my Canadian friends Uncle Seth to learn more.)

Podcasts are still hard to get, find, and take with you, except if you have an Ipod and are using iTunes. Even then, you have to search, subscribe, and reguarly sync and remove old content. Microsoft hasn’t build podcast-catching functionality into Windows Media Player or the Zune (not that we should judge by what’s in the Zune.) But I can listen to audio podcasts or watch video podcasts on my Tivo (some are pre-loaded, others must be tediously typed in). Still not a wonderful overall experience, but Rocketboom looks great on TV.

If we think of podcasts as just an easy way to subscribe to a regular program,
I believe we’ll see podcasts as part of Joost, IPTV or Internet TV offerings (think cable radio like I get now - channels like Broadway show tunes, etc), and soon, ipod like devices that will grab podcasts off wifi like this one from SanDisk grabs songs from Yahoo music.

No, Jason, I’ll keep my mental investment in podcasting for now (I don’t have any stock in podcasting or podcast companies). And I’ll even use this article to chide you for a lack of podcasts of your own - yours was the kind of high quality content that could actually drive people to listen.

UPDATE: In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that I’m on the organizing committee of PodcampNYC, which is a podcasting unconference, and that I occasionally do a podcast for friends at A Chat and a Song as well as Social Media Club’s “They Get It.”

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