AgWired

Since I just helped an agricultural media company create a podcast and I’m in a podcasting mood I thought you might find this of interest. Keep in mind that all the people referred to are using an online environment that includes the biggest podcast directory. Is your company represented there? When I see numbers like these I do have to laugh about this public comment about podcasts and iPods that a farm broadcaster made recently, “It takes too much energy and management for busy people over a long term.” Yeah? Well tell that to all the new iPod owners!

Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, today announced that the market share of visits to the iTunes website (www.apple.com/itunes ) was up 413 percent on Christmas Day 2006 (December 25, 2006) versus Christmas Day 2005 as new iPod owners flocked to the web to download iTunes. In addition, the market share of visits to the Apple Store (store.apple.com) showed an increase of 110 percent when comparing Christmas Day 2006 to 2005. The Apple Store was the fourth most visited website in the Hitwise Retail Index on Christmas Day 2006.

The market share of visits to Zune.net, the site for downloading the music software for Microsoft’s MP3 player showed an increase of 1,030 percent on December 25, 2006 versus the previous Monday (December 18, 2006). However, this strong initial performance was overshadowed by the iPod, as the market share of visits to the iTunes website increased by 1,222 percent in the same period, and outnumbered visits to Zune.net by 30 to 1. “For the third holiday season in a row, the iPod has been the must-have Christmas gift,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.

Via Sundog.

I’m not sure why companies wait until right after Christmas to announce all kinds of new gadgets but whatever. Here’s a cool one for you farm podcasters out there. I have an older Olympus digital audio recorder and you’ve listened to a lot of audio that Cindy and I have recorded on it. This one looks pretty good at first glance. The one pictured here is the Olympus DS-50.

Olympus unveils three new DS-Series digital voice recorders that bridge the gap between work and play. In addition to capturing audio of meetings, interviews and other critical information expected of digital recorders, the new Olympus DS-30, DS-40 and DS-50 are optimized for downloading, listening to and creating podcasts. The new recorders’ high sound quality is also great for listening to audio books and music, making them the all-in-one audio device.

Software included with the devices makes downloading podcasts easy, and the podcasts’ contents are updated automatically each time the audio recorder is connected to or “synchronized” with a computer. Podcasts and other audio content can be downloaded from any Web site. The new voice recorders are also specifically designed to work with Audible.com, a leading online provider of audio books and other spoken entertainment and information.

The price on these is very attractive too. They range from $149 to $249. I think the smallest one is plenty for what most farm podcasters would need.

Via Podcasting News.