April 7, 2006 | In Technology |
Despite the growing profile of podcasting on the internet, a recent poll from Forrester Research suggests that just 2% of the population have sampled this form of internet audio, and a mere 1% listen regularly.
“It doesn’t diminish how powerful or interesting it is, but people need to be realistic about how many people are listening,” said Forrester analyst Charlene Li.
There has been a lot of interest and hype surrounding podcasting in the past couple of years, but podcasts have failed to become as popular as text-based blogs. This is likely due to the vast digital divide causing the majority of internet users to see things like internet audio as being beyond their ability and grasp.
The survey by Forrester showed that a full 25% of internet users expressed interest in podcasting, and the ability to listen to both amateur programming on their own schedules.
The challenge faced by podcasters, and indeed webmasters in general, is to break down barriers like age and technical experience and show users that various forms of “advanced” web media are indeed as easy to use as the internet itself.
