Podcasting in Australia

You see them everywhere. Yes them... people with white earphones walking around the city, on their bikes, sitting on the train, and even doing their daily jog. And hey, this might be you!

Ever since the iPod craze swept this country a few years ago, we've seen an ever growing demand in portable music players for people of all ages. And of course, this trend is witnessed in many other countries throughout the world.

So now that we have scores of individuals each owning a personal music device with the capacity of storing hours of audio, has this opened up a new door of opportunity for direct marketing in the Australian market?

I would think so, and so do many others. And one of the ways is through podcasting (a "podcast" is like a radio show that you can download onto your music player and listen to it when you want). That's why traditional radio broadcasters such as the ABC and 2DayFM has jumped onto the podcasting bandwagon, allowing listeners to download some of their shows.

One major advantage of postcasting over traditional radio is that listeners can choose what they want to hear (be it horseriding, cooking, theology or yoga) and when they want. In the past, there were limitations in storage and Internet bandwidth for this to take off. Now this is no longer an issue.

First of all, I think there exists an opportunity to launch a podcast directory for Australian podcasts. I've yet to find a "good" podcast directory where I could search for content relevant to Australians. What's the use of having your own radio show when people couldn't find it? But having said that, I don't think it'll be long for some person/organisation to come up with one. Even http://www.podcastdirectory.com.au/ is taken.

For Freestyle Media clients such as Sanitarium, I believe there's an opportunity for them to expand their online Nutrition Service to include podcast downloads too. The only Australian health-related podcast that I could find is the one by the ABC - and I found it so BORING! So I think it'll be pretty cool to have an Aussie podcast about healthy living, dieting, etc.

What are your ideas?