November 23, 2006 at 12:45Every eighth internet listener podcasts
The most recent study of podcast audience was conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in August 2006 and published in November ( PDF ). It turned out that in the six months that have passed since the last measurement in February-April, podcasting made a huge leap in popularity . The audience of listeners of audio files from the Internet has grown from 7% to 12%. At least this proportion of respondents reported that they had downloaded podcasts from the Internet at least once. Since we are talking about American users, it can be concluded that in the United States alone, the podcasting audience is 17 million people.
True, the number of “enthusiastic” listeners is still small: no more than 1% of Internet users download podcasts daily. In other words, podcasting has not yet entered the daily habits of users, although it has already become routine technology for them. This is not surprising, because a year ago the famous Oxford Dictionary declared podcasting “the word of the year”.
Like any new technology, podcasting is more popular among users under 29 years of age, as well as among those who have more experience on the Internet. Men listen to personal radio twice as often as women. The level of income has almost no effect on the tendency to download conversations from the Internet, but broadband access strengthens this tendency by about 40%.
The most important factor that affects the popularity of podcasting is the number of MP3 players in the population. As the survey showed, now every fifth American has portable players, and among Internet users this percentage is 26%.
Researchers note that in recent years, technology has evolved very much. Previously, these were simple MP3 audio files, but now the leading podcasts of the world include in their shows and photographs, and text comments (the so-called “showones”), and even video clips. In other words, podcasting is turning into a universal tool for multimedia journalism .
Significantly expanded the subject of podcasts. Now everyone can find a theme to their liking: from music and fashion to religion and politics. Even the most famous media corporations regularly publish podcasts with fragments of their popular radio and television shows. The number of feeds on the largest podcast terminals is growing exponentially. On some of them, the number of files in the archive has already exceeded one million.
A Pew telephone survey was conducted among 2928 people (of which 972 were Internet users), while the error did not exceed 3.5 percentage points.
True, the number of “enthusiastic” listeners is still small: no more than 1% of Internet users download podcasts daily. In other words, podcasting has not yet entered the daily habits of users, although it has already become routine technology for them. This is not surprising, because a year ago the famous Oxford Dictionary declared podcasting “the word of the year”.
Like any new technology, podcasting is more popular among users under 29 years of age, as well as among those who have more experience on the Internet. Men listen to personal radio twice as often as women. The level of income has almost no effect on the tendency to download conversations from the Internet, but broadband access strengthens this tendency by about 40%.
The most important factor that affects the popularity of podcasting is the number of MP3 players in the population. As the survey showed, now every fifth American has portable players, and among Internet users this percentage is 26%.
Researchers note that in recent years, technology has evolved very much. Previously, these were simple MP3 audio files, but now the leading podcasts of the world include in their shows and photographs, and text comments (the so-called “showones”), and even video clips. In other words, podcasting is turning into a universal tool for multimedia journalism .
Significantly expanded the subject of podcasts. Now everyone can find a theme to their liking: from music and fashion to religion and politics. Even the most famous media corporations regularly publish podcasts with fragments of their popular radio and television shows. The number of feeds on the largest podcast terminals is growing exponentially. On some of them, the number of files in the archive has already exceeded one million.
A Pew telephone survey was conducted among 2928 people (of which 972 were Internet users), while the error did not exceed 3.5 percentage points.