5.d) Forrester Research on Podcasting

In 2005, Forrester Research, and independent IT, marketing and technology research firm, spearheaded a number of studies on podcasting.

Businesses, cultural institutions and commercial enterprises, along with media outlets, were beginning to take notice of podcasts, and they were beginning to wondering if and how podcasting could work for them.

Forrester began publishing a number of articles on podcasting focused on consuption and interest, podcasting for marketers, branding and podcasting, and more.

Early on, the numbers were not good: Podcasting was still quite niche in 2005, but Forrester maintained that podcasting would grow and would become a viable platform in the coming years

★  On July 13, 2005, one of Forrester’s chief researchers, Charlene Li,  sat down for an interview with PodTech.net to discuss the podcasting research she was doing and what kind of results Forrester was finding.

★  On August 15, 2005, The New York Times published the article “Podcasts: All the Rage or About to Fizzle?” reporting on Forrester’s podcasting research.

In Canada, a few of the first business podcasts included:

• The Norman Agency’s Creative Conversations podcast which debuted on January 18th, 2005.
• James Maduk’s Web Marketing podcast, which is now sold as part of Maduck’s “MySmallBiz University” course material.  Maduk’s podcast debted in February 2005.
• Clarrus turned their “Random Acts of Quality” presentation into a podcast in April 2005.
• Raincoast Publishing Company started the Raincoast Literary Podcast in November 2005.
• British Columbia’s Editor’s Association started podcasting their monthly members’ meetings in December 2005.

Cultural institutions like the National Arts Centre, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Toronto Science Centre also started podcasting in 2005.