Wizzard Media, the leading podcast hosting network, distributed over 70,000,000 podcast episodes in March to an audience of millions, according to the company.

In the first quarter of 2007, Wizzard Media’s network growth surpassed 50% of the 360,000,000 episodes it distributed in all of 2006 for its 8,000 independent and corporate clients. Daily requests for its publisher’s shows surpassed 2,300,000 episodes per day.

Podcasting Audience Growing Rapidly

“The audience for audio and video podcasts is growing substantially as more consumers become aware of the vast array of high quality, free content available not only to iPod owners but to anyone with a computer or MP3 player”, says Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard. “This is a result of a user generated content hungry audience who appreciates the mobility and time shifting capabilities of podcasting.”

Could Apple’s upcoming iPhone eclipse the marketshare of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile phones by 2008?

Possibly, according to Markitecture, who recently surveyed 1,300 people to find out. 77% of respondents were at least slightly familiar with the iPhone. Among those familiar with the product, 41% had a good impression of the iPhone based on everything they had seen or heard.

Interestingly, Markitecture found that the more people know about the iPhone, the more they like it. 83% of those very familiar with the iPhone had an excellent or very good impression of the product.

Despite the relatively strong impression overall, two-thirds said that there was zero chance they would purchase the product, and only 6% said they were likely to buy an iPhone.

While 6% may appear low,¬†the popular Motorola RAZR achieved a 6% market share at its peak. 6% could also eclipse Microsoft’s 5.6 per cent share of the mobile phone market. Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer recently dismissed the prospects for the Apple iPhone.

The iPhone combines functions of traditional cell phones with an iPod’s media capabilities, along with user-friendly mobile computing features.

The top reasons cited for not wanting to purchase an iPhone are cost and carrier issues/contracts.

MyPodcastNetwork, a new social networking service for podcasting introduced yesterday by SplashCast, has ignited a controversy over podcasters’ concerns that the service is hijacking their content.

MyPodcastingNetwork lets users embed a podcast player in Web pages, similar to the way you can embed YouTube videos in Web and blog pages. What makes the player interesting, though, is that it’s not static audio or video that gets embedded, but a customized channel of podcast content that will automatically update as podcasters update their content.

What concerns many podcasters is that the service is republishing their podcast feeds and video files without permission. This could create confusion over the true source of the podcast’s content, distort podcasters’ audience stats and interfere with podcasters’ ability to make money off of their work.

All Your Podcasts Are Belong To Us

We highlighted our concerns about podcast caching or republishing in our coverage of SplashCasts’ new MyPodcastNetwork service yesterday. The problems with the service, though, go deeper.

Geek News Central’s Todd Cochrane points out that SplashCast is republishing podcasters’ news feeds. Todd’s Geek News Central feed becomes Geek News Central Podcast by SplashCast Feed Agent — SplashCast Channel at SplashCast.

While it’s common practice to offer services that build on the information contained within news feeds, and even to offer news feeds that contain content aggregated from other news feeds, republishing a podcast’s news feed with a new URL can create all sorts of problems for podcasters, and is considered RSS hijacking by many.

“I have no issue with a service aggregating ‚Äúaka‚Äù listing my content, as any exposure is good,” said Cochrane. “All was well untill I look at the RSS button on my splashcast profile and see that they have hijacked my feed.”

Paul Fischer of the A.D.D. Cast tipped us off to an all-(podcast)-star cover of Jonathan Coulton’s song, First of May. The cover is a memorial tribute to the late science fiction podcaster, Joe Murphy.

Murphy was a co-host of the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas podcast, contributor to several other sci-fi related podcasts, and official book reviewer for Dragon Page. Murphy died April 1 of Leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that attacks the smooth muscles of the body and the inner lining of blood vessels.

A warning, though: First of May is not a work-safe song, nor appropriate for young listeners, as the chorus (and verses) of the lilting song are all about the beginning of the season for “f#$%ing outside.”

Corporate communications consultant SNP Communications has introduced a new training class that is designed to introduce corporate communicators to the process of creating, editing, posting and distributing audio and video podcasts.

The SNP Corporate Podcast Class walks participants through the entire production process. The class covers:

• Creating content: pre-interviews, interviews and writing scripts
• Setting-up your studio: equipment list and help with purchase decisions
• Recording a live podcast during the class
• Hands-on editing of the podcast as a team
• Creating the blog backbone and posting new content

“Our business is the content-creation side of RSS feeds and blogs,” said Scott Sigler, Marketing Director of SNP Communications and the podcaster behind the popular EarthCore sci-fi podcast. “We’re experts on the complete process. The more corporate communicators implement their own internal system, the more efficient the process is for the enterprise.”

In a discussion with USA Today at the paper’s CEO Forum, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer dismisses the Apple iPhone, saying “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”

Surprisingly, though, Balmer is equally skeptical about the idea of a Zune phone. “It’s not a concept you’ll ever get from us,” said Balmer. “We’re in the Windows Mobile business. We wouldn’t define our phone experience just by music.”

Here are Balmer’s comments about the iPod, iPhone and Zune portable media player….

The winners of the Webby Film and Video Awards were announced today, with winnders ranging from Hollywood heavy hitters like NBC’s The Office Webisodes to Eepybird.com’s The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments.

The Webby Award Winner for podcasting was NPR Podcasts, which also was the People’s Voice Winner.

Organizers also announced the recipients of two Special Achievement Awards for Acting:

• Ninja, the star of the breakout online comedy series ‚ÄúAsk a Ninja,‚Äù was named Best Actor
• Jessica Lee Rose, faux-jailbait star of the fictional video blog ‚Äúlonelygirl15,‚Äù was named Best Actress.

Details on winners in other categories is available at the Webby site.

Regular users of streaming audio and video in key age groups spend up to 67% more time online than average Internet users, according to new research by Knowledge Networks/SRI’s MultiMedia Mentor.
Comparing those who use audio/video online streaming at least once a week (“streamies”) to all past-month Web users, MultiMedia Mentor found that:

• Teen “streamies” (ages 12 to 17) spend 28% more time on the Internet
• Young adult streamies (ages 18 to 34) spend 41% more time on the Internet
• Adult streamies (ages 35 to 64) spend 67% more time on the Internet

MultiMedia Mentor also found that 42% of teens (ages 12 to 17) view streaming audio or video on their computers at least once a week — their definition of a “streamie.” Adults ages 18 to 34 also are more regularly seeking out audio/video streaming, with 26% qualifying as “streamies”;
among those 35 to 64, the proportion of streamies is 16%.

The research also shows that, in the 18-to-34 and 35-to-64 age groups, men are twice as likely as women to be regular users of streaming video; but among teens, girls are as likely to be streamies as boys.

“Like the adoption of broadband, frequent use of steaming audio and video represents a watershed moment for marketers who are searching for new ways to reach their audiences,” said Robert DeFelice, Vice President at Knowledge Networks/SRI. “Streaming online media are clearly associated with a greater reliance on the Internet for entertainment and information, which leads to more time devoted to the medium. The fact that ‘streamies’ often belong to such desirable ad targets as teens and young adults suggests the value of a sophisticated marketing approach in this medium.”

Apple today announced that Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, will kick off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, June 11, 2007 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. At WWDC, Apple plans to show developers a feature complete version of Mac OS X Leopard and give them a beta copy to take home for final testing. Leopard is scheduled to ship in October.

The announcement is likely to lead to rampant speculation about what Jobs plans to discuss. Given the timing, Jobs is sure to give an update on the iPhone. The biggest question, though, is whether Jobs will offer any real news about the Mac platform. Jobs left some Mac fans unsatisfied earlier this year, when his MacWorld keynote didn’t offer any Mac news.

The five-day event, scheduled to run from June 11 to June 15, will offer more than 150 sessions and labs aimed at getting the most out of Leopard. The conference will also include new content to serve a wide range of developers, including:

• Mac OS X Immersion Monday, designed to quickly get developers who are new to the Mac up to speed;
• a content and media track that shows developers the best ways to integrate animation, motion graphics, video, rich-media and web-based content into their applications; and
• hands-on labs that offer a unique opportunity to work directly with Apple engineers.

Rock legend Peter Gabriel, with partners Steve Purdham and John Taysom, have introduced a new free music supported by personalized advertising messages.

The We7 service works by dynamically ‘grafting’ ads onto the front of music tracks and albums based on a consumer’s demographics such as location, age, gender and could even be extended to preferences.

All We7 music is DRM free so consumers can legally share and play tracks on any MP3 player, expanding the potential for advertisers to reach even more people as content gets shared. The ‘grafted’ ads change on sharing to match the listener.