Content Marketing Notes EMarketer says Podcast ad market to climb to $300 million by 2010
BtoB Magazine quotes EMarketer as saying that podcasts will grow to $300 million by 2010, about a four-fold increase. The report also predicted that the U.S. podcast audience would reach 50 million by 2010—up from 5 million in 2005. A 10-fold increase in audience combined with a quadrupling of revenue doesn't quite jive to me, but it's impressive growth nonetheless. And I thought no one could figure out how to monetize this stuff!

Actually, a lot of people are figuring it out and they're getting funded. Among the players are Podshow, SNP Communications, Fruitcast, and Podtrac.

Cory Treffiletti, SVP at Carat Fusion was recently quoted in Online Spin talking about the bright side (for marketers) of media fragmentation: "Some consumers want their programming when they want it, while others are willing to take it when they can get it. The simple truth is that technology, though it segments the audience and fragments when the audience will view content, has the potential to increase the overall audience for that content." In other words, the audience is still massive, it's just more dispersed.

Ferris's daily analysis is impressive

Ferris Research is distributing notes and commentary by its analysts to journalists on a daily basis, sometimes more often. I don't know of any other IT analyst firm that does this. It must take a lot of time and effort, I told founder David Ferris in an e-mail. He replied :"So far, it's bringing us extra clients. Last week Citigroup became a customer as a result, and we're getting very valuable survey data. I believe that the service makes sense for us. The biggest question we are grappling with is how to clearly deliver value, while maintaining a clear distinction from our premium news service."

That's always a dilemma in content marketing: how much do you give away? I know of no simple answers but the rule of thumb is to give till it hurts. When you begin to see a measurable effect on your business, then you've gone too far. But chances are you haven't. I think most information companies don't give away enough information and should push the envelope a little more. By the way, you can sign up for the Ferris newsletter here.


Silobreaker's got a new perspective
Silobreaker has an interesting tool for visualizing information relationships into the US market. It's one of several new companies exploring alternatives to linear search results as a way to find information. Search is a great way to find but not such a great way to browse and discover. There are several companies and academic research projects tackling this same problem. Answers.com has a good article about the subject with numerous examples.

Tower gets into podcasting
From the March 7 Sacramento Bee: "Seeking a meatier role in the accelerating online music world, Tower Records next week will launch a podcast Web service designed to promote independent music and drive more business to the store's Web site. The pioneering West Sacramento-based record retailer will debut the podcast site, called Towerpod.com, at the annual South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin next week, a company executive said Tuesday. People who go to the Towerpod Web site will be able to download 30-minute podcasts of independent music assembled by Tower's staff.

Wikis are getting hot
Wetpaint got a lot of media coverage early this month with the announcement of some vertical wikis and tools to manage them. The company's site doesn't provide much detail but Robin Good has an excellent writeup on what's different about this product. Basically, it looks like a wiki with fancy management tools, which means it's a content management system. Or is it? What's the dividing line? The company has raised venture money, in any case, and that's significant.

Actually, if you want to try a real wiki for free, head on over to Wikispaces. You can sign up, launch and be using a wiki for your bowling league or church picnic or whatever in a matter of minutes.
  ¶ 8:02 AM