If you’re trying to make money with new media, IDC has some good news for you.

U.S. Internet advertising is growing like mad – up by 25% in 2007 to over 25 billion dollars. And the money’s not all going to Google.
Research Highlights: 

• As people spend more time on the Internet, companies are moving their advertising dollars from traditional media to online media.
• Total U.S. Internet ad spending in the fourth quarter of 2007 (4Q07) grew nearly 28% over the same quarter in 2006 to $7.3 billion.
• Google’s net U.S. market share declined for the first time in two years due to slower growth in domestic fourth quarter sales. The market leader’s net U.S. Internet advertising market share was down 0.5 percentage points to 23.7% last quarter compared to 3Q07.

“If a merger between Microsoft’s new media business and Yahoo! would come to pass, the combined entity would have a net U.S. advertising market share of about 17% based on our 4Q07 data,” says IDC’s Karsten Weide. “It would not quite bring Microsoft-Yahoo! to where Google is in online advertising in the U. S., but it would give them a much better fighting chance than if they went it alone.”

Mark Linder, the creator of the Bedtime Stories My Kids Love podcast, has reached an agreement with the newly formed PodShow Press to publish in both audio and print form his first book of bedtime stories, The Adventures of the Man in the Can.

The new work is a collection of stories about a character named The Man in the Can and comes from the Bedtime Stories My Kids Love podcast.

“The Man in the Can is one of Bedtime Stories My Kids Love most beloved characters,” says Linder. “The tiny man always seems to find himself in impossible situations and somehow, through his ingenuity, steadfastness and the help of his animal and bird friends, always seems to find a way to persevere.”

The printed version of the book is scheduled for release later this year. The first audio book chapter of the series is available now for listening.

Reinvented Software has updated Feeder, an RSS editor for creating news feeds, podcasts and appcasts.

Version 1.5 includes:

• an updated user interface for Mac OS X Leopard
• support for thumbnails for video podcasts with the Media RSS extension
• password-less SFTP
• improvements for tagging MP4 video files, item editing and Sparkle appcasts.

For podcasters, Feeder includes full support for the iTunes RSS podcasting extensions, drag and drop episode creation, an iTunes Store preview and the ability to tag all popular podcast media files. Feeder can publish feeds and associated files via FTP, SFTP, .Mac and file export.

Podcast host Libsyn reports that they are updating their stats engine to address some ongoing issues with it and add new features:

We know stats accuracy is an ongoing issue and that libsyn users have had to exhibit a lot of patience and swallow a lot of frustration as we’ve worked through the problems over the years.

We took the first step of identifying and fixing the issues with the current libsyn.com stats (mainly, some episodes published after July 2007 not showing up in the system, or suddenly stop reporting downloads). We sifted through the code that processes the raw data into data we can use in the reports we provide to you, and believe we have identified the root of the problem, as well as the fix for it.

We’ve set up a test environment, applied this fix, and are now in the process of re-processing the raw data from Summer 2007 forward and verifying that this “fixed” data is accurate. Depending on how that verification goes, the reprocessing could be finished in as soon as 7 – 10 days.

We are working on a plan that will provide scalability, flexibility for us in terms of administrating the application, and will give us the ability to continue to store historical data indefinitely.

Libsyn note that, while they are reprocessing the older data, stats updates will happen less frequently.

Full details at the Libsyn blog.

Looks like a normal alarm clock, right?

Look closer, though – it’s an MP3 retro-style alarm clock.

Open up the back and it’s got a USB cable to hook into your computer:

The Thanko USB Retro MP3 Alarm Clock is officially compatible with Windows 2000/XP. No Mac support is mentioned.

Compatible Sound Source: WAV/MP3 (up to 50 seconds)
Power Source: 3 x AAA batteries up to 1 year use (not included)
Size: 130x190x70mm

$36.63 at GeekStuff4U

AmigoFish is a site that is sort of like a psychic friend that helps you find podcasts you’ll like.

To use it, you sign up for an account, and then rate some shows. Once you’ve rated shows that you like, you can get recommendations for more shows that you’ll like, based on what people with similar tastes to yours have rated.

According to the site, the more shows you rate, the better the predictions will get.

You can find out more about the site at the Amigofish blog.

Microsoft’s downloadable media portal, the Zune Marketplace, announced the publication of Zune’s first video podcast, a behind-the-scenes profile of metalcore band The Black Dahlia Murder.

Zune sent a video crew out to shadow The Black Dahlia Murder on the New York City stop of their current US headlining tour, capturing a day in the life of “one of metal‚Äôs most entertaining bands.” [We wonder if this follows in the footsteps of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” or more along the lines of the Spice Girls’ “Spice World.” -ed]

Highlights include a roof top interview at tour sponsor Metal Maniacs’ offices, a horror movie discussion at Fangoria Magazine and concert footage from the New York show.

The six-part weekly podcast series is available only through Zune Marketplace and Zune.net.

U.S. Internet users watched Internet video a record times in December, according to the latest figures from comScore.

comScore speculates that some of the increase in viewing of Internet video can be attributed to stale television content as a result of the Writer’s strike.

Research Highlights:

• U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during the month, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service.
• Google’s video sites saw substantial growth, accounting for nearly one out of every three videos viewed online.
• Nearly 141 million Americans viewed online video in December.
• Google’s video sites captured the largest online video audience with 79 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 43.9 million and Yahoo! Sites with 38.2 million.
• Online viewers watched an average of 3.4 hours (203 minutes) of online video during the month, representing a 34-percent gain since the beginning of 2007.
• The average video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average viewer watched 72 videos.

‚ÄúDecember represented a considerably strong month for online video viewing,‚Äù said comScore’s Erin Hunter. ‚ÄúWith the writer‚Äôs strike keeping new TV episodes from reaching the airwaves, viewers have been seeking alternatives for fresh content. It appears that online video is stepping in to help fill that void.‚Äù

There’s been a lot of discussion lately in the world of new media about the future of podcasting – people wondering what the current state of podcasting is and where it’s going.

eMarketer forecasts that the audience for podcast consumption will double in the next two years, but even that relatively rosy forecast is disappointing to some.

We recently talked to Chris Spencer, CEO of podcasting hosting mega-network Wizzard Media, to get his perspective on podcasting and its future.

In the last year, Wizzard has acquired podcast hosting services Switchpod, Libsyn, and Blast Podcast. Wizzard made headlines in January when it announced that it had delivered over one billion podcast downloads in 2007. Earlier this week, Wizzard announced that it was now trading on the American Stock Exchange (”AMEX”) under the ticker symbol “WZE.”

In our interview, Chris shared his thoughts on what a billion podcast downloads per year means, what he expects that number to be in 2008, and his predictions on what will happen with podcast advertising.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Tell me about this whole billion downloads number. What does that mean for you in particular, and for downloadable media industry in general?

Chris Spencer: It’s a big number, isn’t it?

For us in particular, it means our servers are running well. Let’s face it: some people wonder whether this accomplishment gets credited to Wizzard, or to our content creators. We feel strongly that it’s 95% our content creators – they create the quality content, and they go out and market their show, and grow their audience. We get 5% credit for being proficient and productive enough to offer a stable inexpensive hosting solution, and that takes a lot of work.

But it comes down to the podcast producers. It’s a big accomplishment for the podcasters we host. It’s a big enough milestone for them and for us, and we publicized it so much.

In reality, what we’re trying to do is raise awareness for podcasting, specifically with the advertisers and the sponsors. It’s a number that’s going to attract a lot of the bigger brands that didn’t realize how big the potential here is. If there’s going to be big audience for podcasts, then that’s going to draw advertisers. That’s why we publicize it, not just for us, but for the whole industry.

Let’s look at the whole podcast industry: Right now, the industry is too small to worry if it’s us, or PodShow, or Podomatic. Right now it’s all about getting the advertisers and sponsors to know more about and be more interested in podcasting. Period.

I could talk about this for hours: it comes down to trying to demonstrate that this is a viable alternative to reach target audiences. More importantly, it is a product that people are consuming, and they’re loving it.

Utterz, a service that lets you post multimedia to blogs and social networks from your mobile phone, has expanded its service to 17 new countries.

The company has also introduced new online video and audio capture, and “conversational threading” capabilities to help users engage and connect with friends, followers and social groups, both online and offline.

Podcasting & Blogging Support

Utterz’ new online Webcam and PC microphone recording lets users create a podcast or videocast in minutes. Utterz audio files are distributed using RSS 2.0 and include basic ID3 information tags, transforming even the most basic of mobile phones into a podcasting platform.

Utterz Connection lets you selectively post multimedia Utters to pages on any of the major blogging platforms or to social network pages with Utterz widgets.

“With Utterz I can update my WordPress and five Blogger blogs as well as my Twitter and Flickr accounts in just seconds,” said Drew Bennett, author of The BenSpark and The WiredKayaker blogs. “And since I can update each one or all at the same time, from anywhere, I post more frequently than I normally would and with more interesting content.”