An eMarketer report says that podcast listeners think that transferring podcasts to portable players is too complicated and time consuming. In 2006, there were 10 million podcast listeners. That will jump to 25 million next year. The report, based on surveys of people in ten US cities. Weekly listeners' growth is much slower, but steadily increases
This brings me to the point about why technology sometimes cannot keep up with changing lifestyle --in this case a practice we almost take for granted: time-shifting.
Having tried out many software applications, from Juice to iTunes, I know the frustration when downloads move like treacle, or iTunes just won't grab a feed you want. It often reminds me of the time we needed a user manual to operate another time-shifting device -the VCR.
iTunes is dead easy to use, but not every podcast I need is available through the interface. Direct downloads from a podcaster's site involves that extra step, and if they aren't using a good aggregator, the bandwidth may be terrible.
Which is where good aggregators come into play. Services such as LibSyn (stands for Liberated Syndication!) make it very easy, at a nominal fee.
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