After hearing all the interest in podcasting expressed at the Agricultural Media Summit I thought I’d offer these tidbits. To start with a company called Ralston360 has created a virtual podcast for you that explains podcasting. Spend a few minutes and watch this. It’s not only well done but they used the same video iPod I own as their screen image. This is high up on the cool factor and brought to my attention by Steve Rubel.

Since farmers are know to be “early adopters of new technology” I have to believe their use of podcasts will be no different than the results found in a Marketing Sherpa survey that was reported on Podcasting News. It shows that blogging and podcasting are two of the most effective marketing tools for generating new sales leads in the technology industry.

If you really wants some numbers you might consider purchasing the Nielsen Analytics report title, “The Economics of Podcasting.” Marketing Vox got some information out of the report from the Financial Times: “that more than 6 percent of U.S. web users, or nearly 9 million people, have downloaded at least one podcast in the last month, reports the Financial Times. Of those, about 10 per cent are “heavy users,” downloading eight or more podcasts a week. Moreover, 38 percent of “active” podcast listeners say they less often listen to the radio now than before they began downloading podcasts.”