I just love it when someone “gets it.” Texas A&M gets it.

One of the first people we interviewed on AgWired was Blair Fannin with Texas A&M Ag Communications. He’s a farm podcasting pioneer. Maybe the first. I just noticed a reference to a paper he presented at the recent Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists annual meeting, titled, “Podcasting Agricultural News” (pdf file). You ought to take the time to read the paper. Blair provides some measurable documentation of his efforts such as one program back in late 2004 that received over 14-hundred requests, which I assume he means downloads.

Blair summarizes his report in words that I can’t agree with more:

Podcasting bypasses traditional media. Instead of Texas A&M Agricultural Communications having to pitch audio news to radio outlets, we send the information directly to our audience via a RSS podcast feed with audio through the Web.

Podcasting opens a new door to target general consumers and agricultural producers with audio news content. Further, this may penetrate younger audiences who are more inclined to use portable .MP3 player devices.

You are right on target Blair. Thanks to the March ACDC News for the alert.