Media Tools: Podcasts
Looking at new media tools we cover grounds of video blogs which are also known as moblogs as they incorporate mobile phones to cover and distribute media projects. Podcasts while they are not the most popular form of media tool are being used more and more by people who have access to the internet. A podcast in its simplest form is a series of digital media files which are distributed over the net using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers.
The term podcast refers to either the broadcasted content itself or the method to which it is syndicated. On a site found on Google search: ‘Podcasting dead or alive? Trends spotting marketing indicators’ published August 30th, 2008 by Tally Weiss, it discusses who is downloading podcasts in the US and why. Within the post it also discusses that podcasting has not become a major form of mass media nor a routine communication form of everyday life. The major influences for the use of podcast were broken down into three categories: Gender, age and previous internet experience. The results found included –
http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=455
Gender:
Men continue to be more likely than women to download podcasts; 22% of online men compared with just 16% of online women report ever having downloaded a podcast. However, men and women are equally likely (3%) to download podcasts on a typical day.
Age:
Younger generations have more fully embraced the technology, their percentages nearly doubling since 2006: ages 18-29 are the heaviest podcast users – 27% have ever downloaded a podcast.
Previous internet experience:
Users with six or more years of internet experience are significantly more likely (22%) than those with less online experience (13% – for 4-5 years experience, 11% for 3 years or less) to have ever downloaded a podcast.
