The technology known as podcasting took two giant leaps forward this week as new developments proved that podcast listening can be tracked and that podcasts can be successfully delivered to mobile phones.
Arbitron's Portable People Meter
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First, Arbitron Inc. announced today that they were able to successfully encode and track podcasts using the Portable People Meter or PPM. During the week of July 18, Arbitron encoded several podcasts provided by Clear Channel’s WHTZ (Z100)/New York, that were then uploaded to the podcast portion of Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The Z100 podcasts were then downloaded to an MP3 player and played over headsets using the PPM headset adapter. The PPM detected and recorded the unique identification codes that were embedded in the MP3 file.“Podcasting is a very different distribution system for traditional radio and the successful test of the PPM should further build confidence in how well it works with all types of audio programming,” said Pierre Bouvard, PPM President at Arbitron. “The state-of-the-art encoding system used in the PPM does a better job of identifying alternate distribution platforms and time-shifted audio content than any other approach to portable electronic audience measurement that we’ve seen.”
This is just the latest test performed on the PPM. The new technology has performed successfully with almost every significant type of audio distribution and compression system. These include advanced audio technologies such as Dolby, HDTV, and satellite uplinks Digicypher and Videocypher.
Additional information is available at Arbitron's Web site.
The other podcasting news, announced yesterday by software publisher Pod2Mob, now makes it possible to deliver podcasts to mobile phones. Pod2Mob has released a podcast streaming service that uses free software to enable consumers to listen to podcasts through their mobile phones."Pod2Mob turns every mobile phone into an iPod," said Brad Zutaut, co-founder. "Until now, podcasting has been a fun, new medium with a limited audience, but Pod2Mob has just expanded that audience beyond the elite to the mainstream."
With the new service, podcasting can expand from its current estimated audience of about 25 million to about 700 million, or the number of people worldwide that currently use a mobile phone. According to Gartner Research, that number will only grow, as sales of mobile phones should reach one billion annually by 2009, when nearly 40 percent of the world's population will own a mobile handset.
The software works by downloading updated podcasts on the go and then streaming them to an applet on the users mobile phone. Content can be refreshed as frequently as needed, programs can be rated and sorted by listeners on quality and popularity, and users can also create a favorites list for ease of access. The service also adds time-shifting capabilities similar to TiVo. Finally, the company's directory is open, meaning anyone can add their podcast feeds to the system, which automatically tracks updates.
"Your phone is always with you, even when you forget your iPod. We built Pod2Mob so that people with the most basic handsets could start listening to the podcast shows they are hearing so much about," added Zutaut. "If you have a phone, you don't have to wait to sync, you can get the latest podcasts on the fly. The ability to listen to radio shows on demand increases their value significantly."
The software currently works with Sprint PCS, T-Mobile, and Cingular mobile phone networks. For more information, please visit Pod2Mob's Web Site.
