Alex Barnett's blog

Yesterday I posted 'Don't believe the Podcast hype'.  Seems there are still plenty of journalists and editors not listening to the blogosphere.  If they were tuned in, I doubt they would have published the following articles within the last 24 hours (with no correction as yet):

• Podcasts Reach 6 Million US Adults (Extreme Tech - April 5) "The latest Pew Internet & American Life Project Report, Podcasting catches on, claims that more than 6 million adults in the US have downloaded a podcast."
• Podcasting takes off (IT World - April 5) "Podcasting is moving from being a niche technology for the tech-savvy to being a mainstream way of accessing Internet content. More than 6 million American adults have listened to podcasts, according to Pew Internet."
• Podcasting becoming more popular (IT Vibe April 5) "A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project has shown that the popularity of podcasting is rapidly increasing, with over 6 million Americans having listened to one at least once."

This one is even worse! Gone from 6 million to 22 million:

• Podcasting explosion (TechSpot - April 5) "It looks like something along the lines of 22 million American adults with iPods or MP3 players have downloaded "podcasts...""

But there are some exceptions.  Washington Post:

"More than 6 million American adults have listened to podcasts -- in your dreams."

As Engadget says,

"Not that podcasting as a phenomenon isn’t growing rapidly or anything, but there’s no reason to overinflate its importance, you know?"