Earlier today we passed the milestone of 10,000 registered users on IT Conversations. Since most of our downloads come in anonymously through RSS and other mechanisms, there’s no way to be sure of the ratio of registered-to-non-registered listeners. But if the ratio is the same as that for those who download/stream through the site, our total active listenership (at least one download/stream per month) is between 80,000 and 100,000.
Podcasting has made it into EQ Magazine, one of the better tech publications for recording engineers, etc. In this article by Brian Maggi, he concludes:
Podcasting is real and here, not some vaporware. And yet, some are still going to miss the boat. They won’t recognize its boundless promotional potential, or appreciate the tangible connections it will create with new and existing audio fans.
So you have a choice: Dismiss it now, fear it later, or take this golden opportunity to define and shape it for the better.
Includes the usual mentions of Adam Curry, iPodder.org and Dawn and Drew.
Some of you have heard me preach/predict that the future of podcasting will be reception by autonomous mobile decvices: when you can both manage your RSS/enclosure subscriptions on a wireless mobile device, receive them asynchronously (i.e., not streamed for listening in real time), and cache them on local disk. All without ever using a desktop or notebook computer as we all do now. The new Nokia N91 looks like it might be able to do this given an appropriate application. Expect the other handset manufacturers to offer similar hardware by the end of this year.