Who is listening?

[jawbone]

I started my podcast a few weeks ago and I've started to get a steady trickle of listeners, but my question is, are my listeners only other podcasters checking out shows? Or do I have a real audience? I'd be interested to hear what other people think about this as well. Are we all just listening to one another? And if so, how do we bring regular people into the fold?

[allthewhile]

We're all just talking into tin cans. But it's fun isn't it?

:D

[jawbone]

That's what I thought. Are we like ham radio operators? Are we going to end up in the basement with our kids upstairs thinking we are weird?

[justSue]

That's what I thought. Are we like ham radio operators? Are we going to end up in the basement with our kids upstairs thinking we are weird?

My that is a frightening thought! Funny, Big Mike and I were talking about this very thing last night. Since our podcast is not in "blog" format (I manually update the XML until I have the time to write a form for Mike), I look at the stats of MP3 downloads on my web server more than the stats on my feed. Its amazing the sheer difference in numbers. We have 100x more "listeners" downloading straight from the website.

So, the short answer is no. We won't end up like Ham Radio operators in the basement unless we start wearing powder-blue jumpsuits.

justSue

[jawbone]

That's what I was wondering. I have Feedburner checking my stats, but I don't know how accurate those are. I should look at the web server stats and see who many people are downloading.

BTW, Sue...checked out your site. simply awesome! Props to you. :D

[justSue]

That's what I was wondering. I have Feedburner checking my stats, but I don't know how accurate those are. I should look at the web server stats and see who many people are downloading.

BTW, Sue...checked out your site. simply awesome! Props to you. :D

Thanks a ton! I'm a Flash junkie :) Listened to a snippet of your show just now and the quality is great! (Would have listened longer but my neighbor is running his **** rototiller and I can't hardly hear ANYTHING right now!) Keep it up! Its obvious you two have a history in radio - very nicely done :wink:

[jawbone]

See? Podcaster listening to podcaster. ;)

Let's see if we can get some *real* listeners! :D

[bigee]

I have built a list of family and friends that get an update everytime I do a new show. And they have started to forward to their friends (and she told two friends, and so on, and so on......)

Now I have over 100 listeners, of which only 20 or so are podcasters.

You just have to do a little extra work and education to get those other folks. Heck, even my DAD has iPodder up and running on his computer now.

My 2 cents....education is everything. Yeah, the exposure on these sites is good, but to the not-so-tech crowd, you need to put a little time into educating them on how to get your show. After that, THEY can teach someone else, and it grows exponentially.

[ferg]

Since our podcast is not in "blog" format (I manually update the XML until I have the time to write a form for Mike), I look at the stats of MP3 downloads on my web server more than the stats on my feed. Its amazing the sheer difference in numbers. We have 100x more "listeners" downloading straight from the website.

It is really difficult to tell who's actually listening. Certainly, your webserver stats on downloads of the actual MP3 file is more accurate than your feedburner stats, though the feedburner stats can give you an indication of the numbers of subscribers you have. The problem is that feedburner only tracks who's accessed your RSS feed, not who's actually downloaded the files. Many of your "circulation" could be automated spiders and bots, but you should be able to discern that (at least for the last 24 hours) by looking at the pie chart.

As for the webstats - it's important that you look at "downloads" (if your stat package provides this) rather than requests. Generally a stat package will record downloads as files that actually complete downloading...as some people may cancel the download, or have their connection dropped and reconnect, generating more requests for the file. Since your web server serves the files, whether they're requested directly from your web site, or via a podcatcher, the number of downloads will include both the direct requests and those pulled down by iPodder, etc.

Now, the real issue, though, is that this isn't *necessarily* a measure of who actually listens. I've thrown a number of RSS feeds into my iPodder just in hopes of having some new stuff to listen to, but never listened to them. This means people have downloaded them, but haven't actually played them.

It would be nice if there was some way of registering when the stuff is actually played, but this would be nearly impossible given that much of the listening is done on portable devices, etc, and would probably be considered by most to be an invasion of privacy.

So, well, err...there you go.

[justSue]

As for the webstats - it's important that you look at "downloads" (if your stat package provides this) rather than requests. Generally a stat package will record downloads as files that actually complete downloading...as some people may cancel the download, or have their connection dropped and reconnect, generating more requests for the file. Since your web server serves the files, whether they're requested directly from your web site, or via a podcatcher, the number of downloads will include both the direct requests and those pulled down by iPodder, etc.


Great point ferg. I actually have 7 active websites that I design/manage, though this is the only podcasting one that is live at the moment. (I'm not a podcaster, that's Big Mike's job! I'm just a web monkey!! :wink: )

I do have the ability to see not only complete downloads, but kbs transfered per click. If someone gets impatient, the kbs transfered don't match the file size. Of course, even if it is completely donwloaded, I can't tell if they've listened to the whole file or not.

I'm really not all that concerend with the math at the moment, though I find the numbers interesting. What I find more interesting is the referring URLs, which helps me determine where the heck these people are coming from. What a bunch of weirdos! :lol:

Again, very good points all around.

[bramley]

I raised this question in another thread to ask folks about their traffic from podcast directories vs. traffic from other sources.

I'm with justSue. I'm more interested in where people are coming from. Once you start seeing a lot of hits coming from non-podcast sources, although you can't be sure they are listening, you can get a pretty good idea that your popularity is expanding beyond the podcast world.

I wrote to a few food-related sites and asked to be included in their links. Then several food bloggers picked up those links and it's run a bit wild. All you need is one or two people with an audience related to your topic. Then the exponential factor starts. As I've said in other threads, too, interviewing people with good audiences helped spread the popularity. Then you become a link on their website or a feature in their blog.

[jawbone]

EatFeed: very good point. That was my thought with interviewing Amanda from Rocketboom. I get a sense that the vlogging world doesn't really want to tread in the podcasters world. I thought the interview might bridge the gap and bring some of the video folks over to the audio world. Lets hope that happens. :)