Podcastplayer.org news

I’ve seen this reported in several places now:

About one in ten American adults now use a portable MP3 player, pushing the potential audience for podcasts up to over 22 million in the US alone.

A recent poll of Internet users by Pew/Internet found that 11% of American adults have iPods or other MP3 players. Pew suggests that there are several million more MP3 players owned by teens, who were not surveyed.

This is an interesting report, but I’m wary of the casual way that it seems to equate owning an MP3 player with being a potential audience for podcasts. I’m sure these people count as a potential audience for downloaded music tracks, but as I point out at my main web site, most MP3 players are decidedly unsuitable for playing podcasts. Worse than that, though, is that it’s almost impossible to find out whether a particular player is a shining podcast star, or a dull black hole.

Based on my experience, most of the people surveyed would probably find podcasts so clumsy to transfer, play, and listen to that they’d give up and go back to their pirated pop songs.

Read more at: Podcasting News: Portable Media Player Audience Balloons to 22 Million