Via Engadget and Scripting News, according to the Pew Internet and Life Project [pdf], 29% of all US digital media player owners (6 million Americans) have listened to a podcast.
I think “6 million American adults have listened to podcats” is being confused with “6 million Americans can recognize the word ‘podcast’ when used in a sentance.” The 6 million mark was derived from talking to 208 media player owners. This leads to a margin of error of plus or minus 7.5 percentage points. Don’t get me wrong, podcasting is huge and is being adopted quickly, I just think that 29% seems a bit high.
Perhaps it could be better stated: “About 60 out of 208 Americans who own digital media players and were willing to be surveyed about their media player usage claimed to have listened to a podcast.”
I’m guessing that a lot of people know what the term podcasting is without having actually participated in the sport themselves. I’ve only ever been able to really get in to IT Conversations and Leo Laporte’s podcasts. I don’t know why, but Dawn and Drew kinda creep me out.
I’ve never participated in “pure” podcasting though. I’m one of those neadrethals who has to download individual MP3s and burn them to CD so he can listen to them in the car. I’ll get with the program someday though.
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