In other podcast-related news... Those consumer-centric media geniuses at Apple have come up with a new way to make the podcast format even more powerful and consumable. The following patent application surfaced this week at the USPTO:

CREATION, MANAGEMENT AND DELIVERY OF PERSONALIZED MEDIA ITEMS

Abstract

Improved techniques to facilitate generation, management and delivery of
personalized media items for users are disclosed. Users are able to
influence or control content within a media item being personalized. In
one embodiment, personalized media items are podcasts. Users are able to
influence or control the content in or with a podcast. In other words, a
podcast can be created in accordance with a user's needs or
specifications so that the content within a podcast is customized or
personalized for the user.

So what does that mean? In broad-strokes, it's a framework that will allow you to program your own podcast "mixes", by taking segments of your favourite podcast sources, and combining them together in the order you want. Like traditional podcasts, it will allow you to subscribe to your new mix so every day you could get your custom-blended mix of news, commentary, music, etc.. If you currently subscribe to 15 different podcasts, and you only want to hear specific segments from each one, combined in a single show, this will allow you to do just that. Obviously it's going to be designed to work perfectly with Apple's iTunes application and sync to the iPod and AppleTV devices.

The images below, from Apple's patent application, demonstrate how it might work:

Here's another way to look at it: you're hungry for pizza but you don't want to order a "Pepperoni" or "Vegetarian" pizza. You want it customised with your favourite toppings. Just the way YOU like it. In other words, Apple's idea is kinda like ordering a custom podcast pizza.

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?