November 29, 2006
The Revolution Will Not Be Podcast
In the eyes of marketing gurus (and some college professors), podcasting has long seemed like a compelling candidate for the Next Big Web Thing. But as several studies show the technology struggling to make inroads, some analysts are starting to wonder if podcasting will ever be more than just a niche phenomenon, according to BusinessWeek.
The latest study, completed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that about 12 percent of Internet users have downloaded a podcast at some time. That sounds like a decent number, but according to the folks at Pew, it’s a bit misleading: Only a tiny fraction of people who have tried out podcasts actually listen to them on a regular basis. That jibes with the results of an earlier study — conducted by the Diffusion Group, a technology-consulting firm — that concluded that more than 80 percent of podcast downloads never reach MP3 players (The Chronicle, March 24).
None of these statistics should dissuade professors from posting course lectures or supplementary material as podcasts. But profs-turned-podcasters may want to conduct a bit of market research of their own to determine how many of their students are tuning in consistently. —Brock Read
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