New technologies have a way of catching on rather slowly at first, before eventually hitting critical mass and taking off. This can definitely be said of podcasting. According to a recent eMarketer report, the numbers have reached an impressive benchmark of 18.5 million listeners in the US alone for 2007 (a 285% increase from 2006). More significantly, 6.5 million of those are considered "active podcast listeners", meaning they download on average more than 1 podcast per week. According to the eMarketer crystal ball, this market is destined to grow to a 65/25 million listener split over the next 5 years. To put those numbers in perspective, the number of US satellite radio subscribers is expected to grow to 30 million in 2015, from 13.6 million in 2007 (according to a summary of another eMarketer report on radio advertising's future).

What's really interesting about this latest report is the suggestion that the medium is still mainly accessed through a PC, rather than a mobile device like the iPod. Mitch Joel, a highly-regarded socialmedia marketing podcaster over at Six Pixels of Separation, has offered his own take on the eMarketer report, in which he hints that the number of podcast-listeners who use their PC as the primary play-back device may be as high as 70%. His rationale for why Podcasting is finally catching on: because once people try it, and subscribe to their favourite shows, it's hard to go back to traditional media (i.e. radio). Time-shifting, Mitch suggests, is the killer feature, along with the ability to pause/fast-forward/rewind. I agree, and while I think that radio will always have a place for live and up-to-the-minute information and discussion (news and talk radio, essentially), where the podcast format is really going to have an impact, and probably already has, is on the mix-tape and mix-CD scene. Seamless integration within iTunes makes the entire process of managing your podcast library a breeze. And this last point will, I suspect, eventually lead to greater mobile device usage over time as people realise they can download fresh mixes of music and play them back in their iPod-enabled cars and while working out - domains long-associated with mix-tapes and CD's.

One last note about podcasts and podcasting: less than three weeks from now, Ryerson University will play host to PodCamp Toronto 2008. This free event takes place over two days, Feb 23-24, and features dozens of information sessions and presentations covering a ton of podcast-related topics by some very respected individuals. More info is available at the Podcamp Blog.

So, are you into podcasts yet? And if not, what's holding you back?