eMarketer, however, believes podcast advertising is poised to explode (relatively speaking). The research firm, which seems to be bullish about an awful lot of online markets (the New Forrester Research?) suggests U.S. podcasting ad spending will nearly triple to $435-million by 2012 from $165-million in 2007.

All things considered, it’s pretty impressive growth. Perhaps I should revive the Talking Tech podcast given this bullish environment.

eMarketer suggests advertisers will be seduced attracted by the growth of the podcasting audience to 65 million by 2012 – with 25 million being active users who listen to a podcast at least once a week. The audience growth will be driven by:

- Greater ease of consumption for podcast content
– Growing awareness of podcasting
– Terrestrial radio’s use and promotion of podcasting
– Increased penetration of portable players
– The evolution of smart phones and proliferation of affordable mobile data plans

Frankly, I don’t see (or hear) this kind of growth in the size of the ad market or audience. To me, podcasting will remain a second-tier UGC activity for a niche audience – mostly geeks – as opposed to a mainstream medium. Then again, I spent considerable time driving on the weekend, and commercial radio is mostly crap so perhaps podcasting could thrive if MP3 connectors become standard in new cars.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Podcasting

And while everyone loves the idea of a podcast and lots of people enthusiastically talk about making podcasts, it’s actually difficult to find a lot of people who admit to listening to them. Hands up, how many people out there listen to podcasts on a regular basis. I’d be surprised if more than a few people raised their hands.

If the paucity of podcast listeners is true, why is that? Podcasts should be popular because they’re easy to produce, which means they’re a huge variety of content available; they’re pretty easy to find and download, and listening to them on your computer or MP3 player is user-friendly. Hit play, and you’re good to go.

But in the scheme of things, podcasts have such a low profile. While podcasts struggle to gain momentum, blogs continue to boom, video-casts are becoming more popular as they get easier to make and access through places such as YouTube, and photo-sharing still has plenty of traction. You could argue that podcasts are the ugly-duckling on the user-generated content family.

Even though few people want to admit listening to podcasts, there are apparently lots of people apparently downloading them. According to ReadWriteWeb, Wizzard Media (which owns Libsyn, Switchpod and Blast Podcast) passed the one billion download barrier in 2007.

But as RWW points out, getting an accurate read on what this accomplishment really means given it’s difficult to tell how people consume podcasts after they are downloaded. For example, I’ve got a bunch of podcasts in my iTunes but only listening a very small number.

The other podcasting mystery if whether there is a business to be had. In other words, are advertisers gravitating to the medium at a time when they’re still, at best, dabbling with putting ads on blogs? While there are podcasts that attract sponsors, my sense is the vast majority of podcasts never even get a sniff of advertising revenue – and it’s not like there’s AdSense for podcasting if you are looking to make a few bucks on the side each month.

So, Leesa Barnes (one of Canada’s leading podcasters), what do you think? Is podcasting, in fact, alive and well?

Technorati Tags: Podcasting

Not surprisingly, we talked about the iPhone after Kevin managed to snag on at an Apple store at a mall near Detroit last weekend. Despite the fact he can’t use it as a phone yet (the Wi-Fi works, though), Kevin spends considerable time gushing about the iPhone.

Google’s acquisition Grand Central also grabbed us given we believe it sets the stage for Google to become a key telecom services player now that’s it assembled a portfolio that includes a ton of dark fiber.

Finally, we talked about the $52-billion acquisition of Bell Canada by private equity investors following a much-criticized auction process.

- Telus’ decision to pull out of the running for BCE (Telus still might get back in the game even though a $52-billion deal was reached last weekend with one of the private equity groups)

- More talk about the iPhone. (Yikes!) Kevin wants one; I’m on the fence although the NYT’s David Pogue alsmost has me convinced that I need one.

- The future of the music industry, which is, of course, all about the live experience that you willingly pay money to see.

In Canada, the big news within the tech/telecom sectors is Telus’ interest in doing something with Bell Canada, which has been on the auction block for the past month or so. It appears the federal government has given its tacit approval for Telus and Bell to join forces based on the assumption that a strong national carrier will be able to compete when/if foreign ownership rules disappear.

In the Web world, Jerry Yang’s ascension to Yahoo’s CEO following the decision to boot Terry Semel was a huge, if somewhat surprising move. My take is Yahoo is floundering strategically and seems to have lost its sense of direction and personality. Yahoo used to be fun; now it’s dull and corporate. Whether Yang can change things is a big uncertain.

Finally, we take a look at whether the increasing strong Canadian dollar is going to hurt the Canadian tech sector, which has thrived by being a cheap place for U.S firms to do R&D.

- whether Canadian high-speed carriers are moving away from all-you-can plans at a time when customers are consuming more bandwidth amid the online video revolution

- the chances (or need) for a fourth national wireless carrier in Canada

- rumours that Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski could be a candidate to be next CEO of Qwest, and

- Intel slashing its prices, and whether it means trouble for AMD.

Technorati Tags: Podcasting, Talking Tech

- Nortel: Is hyperconnectivity going to save Canada’s flagship technology company

-  MySpace moves into Canada; Facebook moves into free classfied ads

-  Porn: 379 million pages on the Web; $2.89-billion of online business in the U.S. last year. Go figure.

We start by looking at the strong quarterly results from Apple and Microsoft, which reaped the dividends of strong iPod and Vista sales respectively. I ask the naive question about whether the iPod can continue to sustain its amazing growth. Duncan’s responded by comparing Apple to Madonna but wonders if the iPhone bring the whole house of cards down? In terms of the dark stock options cloud hanging over Apple and Steve Jobs, Duncan predicts Apple shares could tumble $30 to $40 if Jobs is forced to step down.

In talking about Microsoft and the Xbox, we spent some time looking at the strategy behind the Nintendo Wii. Instead of competing with high end graphics machines such as the Xbox 360, the company dumbed down its product and went after everyday consumers.

Duncan uses this as a classic case of disruption – coming up with just a good enough product, rather than a pefect product. There’s a good article in the latest issue of Business 2.0 on the Wii.

On the local M&A front, entrepreneur Randy Charles Morren’s RSS email service, Rmail, gets some love from Mark after selling the company to NBC Universal. By the way, Duncan  has a new job as director of  Canadidan research for technology, media, telecommunications and life sceiences with Deloitte.

We couldn’t resist weighing into the takeover frenzy surrounding BCE Inc., which has put itself into play, and could fetch $30-billion from private equity investors. Another scenario being bandied about is BCE merging with Telus to create “Belus”. Kevin doesn’t think Telus wants to be taken over. The board is happy with the team and the company has just got over the hump of challenges that BCE is now facing.

Finally, we chat about eBay’s $40-million to $45-million acquisition, which I use as a way to rail against the Canadian VC market.