SMH article on Podcasting
Paul McIntyre has written a good article on Australian podcasting in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.
He starts off talking about the numbers that Aussie radio stations are quoting for their podcasting efforts (ABC radio 300,000 downloads a week, Austereo 300,000 a month, 2GB 50 - 60,000 a month), then he gets onto us:
Since launching in February, the Podcasting Network (sic) is averaging about 140,000 downloads per month, with 70 per cent of its audience coming from the US.
“The more talking and promoting radio does of podcasting the better,” says Podcasting Network co-founder Cameron Reilly. “They’re basically my marketing department. They’re training the audience we don’t have yet. As soon as people figure out how to use podcasts, there’s a tendency for other people to look for what else is out there. It’s fantastic.”
For the Podcasting Network’s other co-founder, Mick Stanic, the real user phenomenon is yet to be seen. It will come from new mobile devices with large memories capable of storing more audio and video files.
“Steve Jobs gets up and says he’s sold just over 20 million iPods in four years,” Stanic says. “Well Nokia sold over 40 million mobile phones in one year that can play mp3.
“What’s of more interest to us is the four gig [larger memory] Samsungs, Motorolas and Nokias. Those little handsets, those converged mobile devices, are what we’re looking at to really push podcasting along.”
December 17th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
But can you handle more people downloading? With shows like Claybourne only being podcast occassionally, when you get enough emails to remind you another month is more than half over and you still haven’t posted a single episode, let alone the 3 a week you are supposed to be posting. The frustration level prevents me from trying out any other podcasts on this network. If all the other podcasts are as unreliable, radio has nothing to worry about at all.