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Podcasters get closer to their audience
Report: New technology helps advertisers get a handle on how many people are listening to podcasts.
November 11, 2005: 12:25 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Audible Inc. is introducing a way for advertisers to measure the number of people who listen to podcasts, according to a report published Friday.

The Wall Street Journal said Wayne, N.J.-based Audible plans to sell a measuring service for podcasts, Internet-based audio shows that listeners download to their computers.

The service will not only track how many times a podcast is downloaded but whether it is actually played and for how long, the report said. That's expected to be of great help to advertisers, who now will have better audience information, it said.

Right now "there's no measurability" in podcasts, Matt Feinberg, a senior vice president for radio at Publicis Groupe SA's ZenithOptimedia, told the newspaper.

The Journal said advertisers don't know whether listeners are actually listening to the shows they download. That has made the guidance for pricing accompanying ads difficult, it said.

With the tools, "you can build a bona fide rate card" for advertising, Foy Sperring, Audible's senior vice president for strategic alliances, said in the report.

Most podcasts don't currently come with ads, the newspaper reported. But it said, podcasters are looking into ad possibilities and say they hope it will become a significant part of advertisers' budgets one day.

Audible's new podcasting tool is based on existing technology the company uses to distributes books, magazine articles and newspapers in audio form, the newspaper said.

The report said Audible's technology puts measurement capability in Audible-compatible devices -- such as Apple's iPod -- or in the software for listening to Audible's content.

The Journal said Audible will make its service available to outside podcasters and will charge three cents for each downloaded podcast to report whether a downloader listened, and for how long. It will charge five cents per download to track listening and attach access restrictions, and for half a cent per download, Audible will insert an ad relevant to the podcast, according to the newspaper.

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