Podcasting Gradually Picks Up Steam with U.S. Internet Users

6:55 am on December 4, 2006 | Category: VoIP, Web Services

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More U.S. internet users are now experimenting with downloading podcasts, according to a recent telephone survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

The study defined a “Podcast” as “a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.”

Out of a sample of 972 adult internet users, around 12% say that they have downloaded such an online audio file, but only 1% report doing so on a daily basis. Men are apparently more likely than women to listen to podcasts, with the gender ratio weighting in at 15:8 (%), while those who have used the web for three years or longer outpace their less experienced counterparts by a ratio of 13:6.

The increasing popularity of podcasting is largely due to the wide array of individual publishers and mainstream media institutions that now use web audio. One of the web’s leading podcasting directories, Podcast Alley, for example, now lists a total of 26,000 regularly updated audio feeds, compared to just 1,000 in November 2004.

The rage of subject matter covered by has also expanded greatly in the past couple of years, and now includes news, politics, technology, music, consumer products, comedy, and religion.

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    Edited by Jeremy Maddock