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101 Comments
- stylerm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I download a few podcasts. I have not listened to a single one yet.
- titaniumdecoy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12This is NOT a study, merely a BLOG/RANT.
Just because people DOWNLOAD podcasts does NOT mean that they LISTEN to them. - theone3, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Wait.. You're looking at downloads? Isn't that one of the things that Forrester research is claiming is NOT a good indicator? Also, they're talking about the USA, and you're looking at global stats?
- scbysnx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8its a downloaded mp3 not a streaming one
- geeknews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6No I am saying that we are tracking over 350,000 unique IP's that download podcast. No individual downloads, we track millions of those each month.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Article author is an idiot. Downloading != listening. Lrn2read.
- UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I listen to about 30! Only a couple of those are daily, most are weekly, others less often. I can't imagine a commute, jog, walk, bike ride without them.
It's content on demand and it's still as exciting to me as it was over a year ago when I began listening. - eclipxe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Indeed - downloading. Some sites offer streaming (pod2mob.com)
/shameless plug - tryferos, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Only thing about radio is that you are limited to what you can listen to. The cool thing about podcasts is that you can listen to practically any subject, and many still are ad free or have limited ads. Try that with radio...
Radio is dead, random blabbering is dead. Focused media is what will succeed, just please Alex Albrecht....no more Ctrl-Alt-Chicken..that first show was horrible. Even your comedy skills and sharp wit couldnt fix that pile. - UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Apple is in no way responsible for the term "podcast", nor do they care that iPods don't have built in AM/FM.
- Pentarix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Precisely, the "article" is inaccurate.
- UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6do you like regular talk radio or audiobooks? if not then you won't like podcasts.
- Katsushiro, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8*sigh*.. I love how all these people assume that just because *they* don't listen to podcasts, *no one* listens to podcasts. I'm sure most of you have never, say, done sky-diving before. Does that mean *no one* has ever done sky diving?
Now, I don't know what the truth is on how many people actually do listen, but I have had some experience with both listening to podcasts and producing them. I listen to quite a few of them regularly, in fact, for the most part, they've replaced my regular radio listening. And big podcasts, like say, TWIT, Diggnation, or the Dragon Page shows, definitely have an audience. I mean, the TWIT guys or the Diggnation guys announce they're gonna be somewhere in one of their upcoming shows, and dozens of people show up for that show. The Dragon Page guys get dozens of voice mails, emails, and other contacts after each one of their shows. I'm willing to bet that the amount of email and voice mail feedback they get is comparable to what many small-medium terrestrial radio stations get. And considering that, on average, for every listener that bothers to send in a voice mail or email, there may be many dozens more who just listen silently (and this is what regular surveys work like as well: for every person that answers the survey, it's assumed many more would have answered the survey just like they did if they'd taken it as well, so they can extrapolate from having surveyed, say 700 people, that 5 million americans love potted meat products), that seems to indicate a substantial audience, at least for those big shows.
As for smaller podcasts, the proverbial 'one guy sitting in his underwear blathering into a microphone', I can't say, but I do have a personal anecdote that leads me to believe that even for those, there may be a small but substantial audience. I experimented with a podcast of my own for a few months. It was crappy, low quality, and consisted mainly of me ranting about nothing in particular for half an hour or so. Sounds terrible, right? It was, that's why I stopped doing it. But, even as bad as it was, after a few shows, I started getting emails, comments, and other feedback from totally random strangers who had listened to the show. I had maybe a hundred downloads for each show, and I don't know how many of those downloads turned into listeners, but even with that small number, there was feedback. If a crap-ass show like mine could find an audience, however small, many of the other shows out there could find one too. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4CAN WE maybe stop with the CAPS people.
It's idiotic. - wyrder42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm currently listening to a Doctor Demento-ish podcast called The Mad Music Hour as I write this (at work).
I first heard about digg.com on Technorama (a podcast).
I bought an iPod to make it easier to listen to podcasts.
I listen to podcasts.
All you freaks that don't, you just don't know what yer missin'. - isny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4So what's the ratio of podcast listeners to podcast creators?
- sourcemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So you don't listen to radio or watch TV shows? How is podcasting any different?!
I have to agree it's an awkward moniker though. - UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Yeesh. 'podcasts', 'downloaded mp3 files', 'clambakes', 'aural ejaculations'... whatever you want to call them, I don't care. The name of the thing is not the point here."
Exactly. And the file format should be irrelevant from a listener's point of view. All the shows I subscribe to go straight to my iPod when I connect it.
It's all about the content and the listening experience. - chiizu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I host a podcast, and I don't even listen to them.
- Koldark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Even if Todd is wrong. There can't be only 700,000 listeners how would they track that data? Did they go to PodTrac? PodShow? RawVoice? The Twits? I think if they got data from those poeple and accumulated all of that data, they would have a much better idea on number of listeners.
- psylence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I imagine they were pretty boring to watch
- theonlybigboss, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Thank the FSM someone put something as a rebuttal to yesterdays article up, that other one made me feel as if i was dumber just by reading it.
- jmccorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How many of these are automated downloads that people subscribe to but don't listen to?
- Kuipo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I don't know anyone that listens to them at all. But possibly being in the IT field keeps you from caring about other geeks opinions. Someone should do a study!!
- luvkit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Here's the true test: I listen to a few podcasts regularly. Diggnation, TWiT, and Major Nelson. Granted, they may not have a HUGE audience, but the larger ones have audiences comparable to decent sized cities. Podcasters don't need the entire planet listening to them. They function more like a magizine. People with interests in the subject of a particular podcast will download that podcast.
Here's another test: just ask some of the major podcast players about the prices they have to pay or get sponsored for bandwidth. That's a real cost to these people... and you people honestly believe no one listens?! Someone is, and I, for one, am. - UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3check out the most popular ones.
http://www.podcastalley.com/top_podcasts.php?num=50
All of the popular shows I listen to have excellent audio and production quality. - futoranime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What I see is a growth in the market. Though the growth is only a small portion of the population, I think that many people are just not in the know. When podcasting becomes more a part of the mass media (and it will) then we can see how far it's working. I don't think podcasting will become big for another few years though it's impact is great right now. I think we are too early in the game to make assumptions right now.
http://www.gameaddicthotline.com (A podcast. Yeah I'm in the cult too. But it's a good one.) - LR2_, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3yes we do!
- audiocollective, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2um... it is even worse for radio or tv! at least with the web stuff you get some number.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5this is not a correction, forresters stats are still valid, they have not been corrected. marked as inaccurate
- Elsan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3True or not. We don't care. Listen to podcasts if you want or not.
Personnally, I like to multitask(geek lol) and reading or working while listening to a podcast is hard for me, since I have to listen correctly. I downloaded some and tried to listen to them without success. I might try again later... - UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Podcasting is not a new word for something that already existed. Try and look at it holistically, it's much much more than just mp3 + rss.
If you can't see that, I'm sorry. - geeknews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2jmccorm thats a question we would all like to know, but I am not about to introduce some evil technology that calls home to mama when they play it on their MP3 player. That would be worse than what Apple and Microsoft do, but surveys indicate those that do listen, listen to the majority of the programs.
The key thing here is that of the 20,000 + shows being delivered today using the RSS enclosure method plus direct click via the website there are a heck of a lot more than 700,000 people listening, I bet Dignation and Twit have over a 100,000 unique listeners all by themselves, my own show has a significant following but because I have had access to multiple shows logs, www.techpodcasts.com, www.podcasternews.com etc we can account for people that listen to multiple shows and instead of counting them 5 times we can count for them once or at least their IP once. - CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes the author must have been touched by his noodly appendage.
- scbysnx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I listen to 3 podcasts regularly
- antdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/005950.html from the beginning and not starting at the darn comment section!
- UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3they were probably boring tech podcasts or ones by mainstream media, right?
- geeknews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Unique IP's tracked from show release to show release does build valid stats, but at the same time it actually under reports the numbers with IP's showing up 100's of times aka (AOL) it's true we are only measuring downloads and the numbers we have go much deeper than what I am willing to go into, but the important thing is the data we have spans 10 months and covers a wide spread of shows. For the uninformed what makes a podcast different is that the delivery mechanism is via the RSS enclosure for those using iTunes, Juice etc. Otherwise yes it is no different than putting a MP3 on a server someplace. But a high percentage of listeners are getting the programs delivered to their MP3 player while they sleep.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i think every body is missing the point. podcast are like blogs its about having fun recording your podcast not sitting by a counter and waiting for listners/downloaders. but this new "study" is wrong i have heaps of podcasts that i dont listen to infact i only do the rev 3 stuff because i know that they provide good content
- GAMEchief, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've prolly downloaded twenty podcasts and only watched three...
- UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The only video podcast (non-cartoon) I've found worth watching is Liam Lynch's Lynchland.
http://www.liamlynch.net or on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=124956233&s=143441
The rest, like Diggnation or DL.TV are good to watch but don't lose much in audio-only form. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4i listen to several podcasts daily, at work, Democracy Now, PBS Now, PBS Face the Nation, Newsweek, Meet the Press, ABC Nightline, NBC Nightly News, KCRW To The Point, NPR On Point with Tom Ashbrook, and thats just the political side... surely with all those podcasts im not the only one listening
- SoulMaster2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think it's to divert attention from the fact iPods don't have FM tuners while pretty much every other player does
- audiocollective, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This guy knows what he is talking about! I have been listening to his show for a while and he has some powerful server stuff to monitor the downloads. You still cant tell how many people listen to the mp3's though... unless they have DRM attached to them, but how wants that? The Forrester research was totally wrong!
- agimat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I see a series of comments complaining about how the post is a dupe or inaccurate or old or how something is evil or non-tech and should not be on digg and or should not be dugg for whatever tiring BS and i don't know, I just get this urge to u know.. digg..
DUGG - Chuck95, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I subscribe to about 20 and listen to at least one a day and I'm in the IT field. I have a 15 minute drive and then 15 minute walk to work. It sucks and podcasts make it way more entertaining. Plus I learn something. I still haven't caught up with all the Twit, diggnation, and Security Now episodes. I can't stand the radio. Listening to idiot morning shows is just not entertaining to me. Even NPR, which I do like, is eaten up half with "donate now" talk. I'd rather listen to exactly what I want while I have the time. I can pause it if I'm not done, and finish on the way home if I need to also... win/win for me.
Twit, diggnation, Security Now, Jack Black, French Maid TV, The Onion, Inside the Net, Ask a Ninja, TikiBar TV... All good IMO. The only one I can't really seem to get into is Daily Giz Wiz... I think its just too much, the daily thing. I think they should switch it to weekly. - numbnuts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Maybe more podcasters should do this to "Hypnotize" the listeners (with bineural beats) into not reading to studies
http://podcast.mytake2.com - lukes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think the point theone3 is trying to make is that the number 700,000 is based on 1% of Internet users in the USA, whereas the amount of unique downloads someone gets of their podcasts is a percentage of Internet users in the whole world. He might well get 350,000 unique downloads of his podcast, but they won't all be from the population of the USA
- CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You all are looking at it all wrong. For one it doesn't matter how many don't listen to it, its how many that do. This is free entertainment if you don't want it then don't download it but for those that do that just means you are helping out other people. Also its about the people you are targeting. Most people that listen to podcasts are technology oriented so if your podcast is technology oriented you will have a lot of listeners.
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@tryferos: Alex Albrecht funny!? You have got to be kidding me. How is that man funny? Sorry Alex, but if you're reading this, you need to learn about timing, you're always cutting off Kevin and it just makes your lame attempt at humour even less funny.
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