Mobile Makes Great Platform for Podcasts
The web is growing in every conceivable direction. Total number and demographic spread of users, international reach, variety of technologies, you name it. One of the most rapidly growing, and most interesting, markets is mobile video.
Out of a total U.S. Internet population of 172 million, more than 2 million subscribe to mobile TV, according to Telephia data reported by ClickZ master of statistics, Enid Burns. (23% of those are Hispanic users, a very under served, but very active, Internet demographic.)
In China, mobile users have outnumbered fixed-line users there since October 2003. They now number nearly 417 million, according to data from the Ministry of Information. (A questionable source, but made plausible by figures from other sources. In particular, eMarketer reports Informa data showing over 376 million mobile phone users in China, compared to 208 million in the U.S.)
Though the latest Hollywood blockbuster probably isn’t great source material for a cell phone (and they don’t serve in-program ads anyway), there are other options — options more useful to affiliate marketers.
Video or audio podcasts make perfect content for those small screens and they are well integrated with both local search and contextual ads. Heidi Cohen has some excellent tips in a recent ClickZ column on how to make a podcast that attracts business. That advice doesn’t depend on serving the content solely to a desktop or laptop user, either.
With Microsoft looking to bring classified ads to China with Live Expo, the triple witching hour may just be approaching.