According to CNBC‘s latest survey, Apple will be having a merry Christmas.

8% of those polled expect to buy an iPod this year. According to CNBC’s calculations, that means Apple will sell about 17 million iPods.

At an average cost of $159 a machine, that adds up to $2.7 billion for Apple.

Eclectic local podcast New Orleans Podcasting calls itself “an uplifting smorgasbord of short audio interviews featuring an array of vital and interesting individuals”. It is the brainchild of Craig Kraemer of Kraemer Advertising, a New Orleans advertising agency.

Although each guest has a different perspective on post-Katrina New Orleans, all share an unshakable faith in the Crescent City and her future.

Kraemer’s podcasts — more than 60 since Hurricane Katrina — range from national celebrities to colorful local characters. The common thread running through all interviews is the message of revitalization, hope, and positive achievement for New Orleans. Each of Kraemer’s podcast guests is dedicated to New Orleans in a unique way. The mood of the podcasts is positive, and diverse stories point up progress throughout the city in business, industry, the arts, music, food, politics, news, and more.

StumbleVideo is a new site that lets visitors browse through video content from MySpace, Google Video and YouTube using a simple interface, and vote videos up or down, like a video Hot or Not.

The site is based on the technology of StumbleUpon, a company that provides a toolbar for “stumbling” onto new Web sites.

“StumbleVideo allows people to discover great videos they would likely never find using traditional keyword searches,” according to StumbleUpon‚Äôs VP of Marketing, David Feller. “The experience is like channel surfing through video content that is laser-targeted to your tastes.‚Äù

via Marketing Pilgrim

Former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon has made the move to ABC, where she “dishes” the news with the same irreverence that made her a video podcasting star.

ABC calls her work a videoblog. There’s no RSS feeds currently, and you have to sit through ads and you have to watch it through a pop-up interface. Feeds are on the way, though, according to Congdon.

Comments on the first episode range from “it takes people one step closer to understanding self expression on the web” to “It’s another case of the big boys not understanding the method.” There seems to be a consensus at least, around “ur a hottie.”

“I‚Äôm back videoblogging again,” said Congdon. “I can‚Äôt tell you how good it feels to be online, chilling with my homies, once more.”

The “news” that iTunes sales are plummeting seems to have been picked up by every blogger and analyst that has an axe to grind about iTunes or digital music in general.

A common theme in the coverage is that people were finally rebelling against copy-protected digital music.

This would make sense….if digital music sales were really plummeting and if it were clear that the general public cares about digital copy protection. In fact, iPods are selling like hotcakes and the number of copy-protected iTunes songs sold per iPod is up by about 15% in the last few months.

While the doom and gloom predictions for the iTunes store haven’t panned out yet, it’s true that iPod owners don’t spend a lot on digital music.

There’s an obvious reason this, though. Buying albums via the iTunes music store just isn’t a very good deal.

Podango this week announced a partnership with podcaster Scott Bourne, who will be working with Podango as executive strategic advisor.

“Scott is a recognized leader in the podcasting space and brings additional strength to the Podango team,” said Lee Gibbons, Podango CEO. “Scott has been in podcasting from the early days. His expertise will add to our ability in this new market.”

There’s been a lot of buzz in the last day over the “news” that Apple’s iTunes sales were “plummeting“.

• The Register reported that iTunes sales are collapsing.
• Bloomberg reported that Apple’s iTunes sales are sliding.
• The Chicago Tribune reported that Apple’s iTunes sales took a dive.

The stories are based on a Forrester report and their researcher’s comments. The researchers reported that iTunes sales dropped 65% between January 2006 and June 2006.

Taken out of context, this sounds like a substantial decline. However, when you consider seasonal buying patterns, and the fact that the iTunes store experienced a similar decline in the same months in 2005, it’s clear that iTunes purchases surge after the holidays, and then drop back down.

iPod sales spike before Christmas. After Christmas, there’s a spike in iTunes purchases, as new iPod owners try out their new devices. This is reflected in Forrester’s report, but it would be a stretch to read much more into their numbers.

Forrester analyst Remy Fiorentino also notes that the decline they report is “based on a sample of 181 iTunes buyers.”

“The conclusion that iTunes sales are slowing is simply incorrect,” Apple said this morning in a statement.

The numbers that Forrester report and their coverage in the press seem to tell us more about analysts and their biases than they do about Apple’s iTunes sales.

SearchforMedia Network, developer of video and audio search engine technologies, announced Tuesday the first phase of its international video podcast directory, www.searchforvideo.com. The video search engine offers users a means to find podcast content from a variety of countries and in a number of languages.

“Searchforvideo currently offers a video podcast directory for English-language video podcasts. We are now extending that to include several languages and countries, beginning with Germany and France. As more international video podcasts become available, searchforvideo will connect those content producers with our large online audience,” said Jenifer Osterwalder, ceo of FUSA Capital Corporation, parent company of SearchforMedia Network.

The first phase of the international video podcast directory provides access to the most popular video podcasts from Germany and France. International video podcast producers can submit their podcasts for review and inclusion in the directory for free. Developers plan to consider additional languages for inclusion in the international video podcast directory.

The music podcasting portal Divvycast has announced a content partnership agreement with digital music distribution company IRIS Distribution. The arrangement lets Divvycast tap into IRIS’s current roster of independent record labels to supply music content for the Divvycast Label Group. The Divvycast Label Group is a collective of independent record labels that can deliver advertising from a variety of advertisers and agencies.

Labels that are part of this agreement will have access to the “Divvycast Uploader Module,” a podcast-creation utility making content from existing songs, interviews, concerts, and DJ mixes. Once the podcasts are uploaded to the Divvycast portal, advertisers can then join with the labels and dynamically insert advertising into those podcasts as they are streamed or downloaded. Labels will earn revenue from the ads placed in the podcasts.

IRIS is a digital distribution company providing technical, marketing and legal services to independent record labels and physical distributors. IRIS distributes independent record labels to digital retailers, mobile channels, as well as video outlets.

Sprint today announced that it has upgraded the Sprint Power Vision Network with the faster EV-DO Revision A technology in 10 markets. With today’s launch in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Detroit, Denver, Baltimore, Providence and New Jersey, Sprint now covers more than 60 million people in 20 markets with the upgraded mobile broadband network.

Users in the 20 upgraded major metropolitan markets should experience significantly faster average upload speeds of 300-400 kbps (compared with 50-70 kbps of current EV-DO networks). Average download speeds should also increase to 450–800 kbps from 400-700 kbps. With the upgraded mobile broadband network, customers in these markets will ultimately be able to utilize richer applications and services such as high-speed video telephony, music-on-demand, video messaging and large file uploads.