There is a buzz about time-shifted technologies around the world – Tivo for video and podcasts for audio. Forrester’s podcasting forecast is mentioned in The Future Of Digital Audio report, which says that podcast adoption will be driven by a mix of broadband penetration and MP3 ownership. The report puts 2005 forecast to 300,000 US households, rising to 12.3 million US households by 2010. That is a freaking large number but the challenge being faced is to find a business model to monetize podcasting. The possible options could be sponsorships, advertising, cooption or subscriptions.
When US and Europe are showing a lot of interest in Podcasting, what is happening in India? The low broadband and Ipod (or other portable mp3 players) peneteration are the main reasons for slow growth. Also, there is hardly any Indian content available as Podcasts. Some of the news websites have started making their news stories available as podcasts. So, where do we go from here?
Some questions to be answered — what kind of players will enter this space? Will content providers see value in providing another vehicle for their content and when? Looking at the growth of blogging in India, can the user-generated podcasting also pick-up?. Only time will tell…
