Podcast fans favour Apple and Star Trek

To whom should you be targeting your podcasts? Apple users, Trekkies and maybe Nike lovers, according to a new survey.

Macworld is the No. 1 most-visited content site by people who download audio podcasts, according to media research group Nielsen/NetRatings, while StarTrek.com is the most visited content site among video podcast downloaders.

The report (click for PDF) is based on an ongoing survey conducted from 2005 to the present, according to a spokeswoman for the company. The survey asks actively online US adults to answer questions about their behaviour "within the last 30 days".

Among those surveyed, 51.6 per cent said they paid bills online, and 24.6 per cent participated in online job hunting. Emailing is still the most popular online activity at 92.7 per cent, with news reading (71.5) and weather checking (63.9) in second and third place, respectively. Compared to those statistics, downloading podcasts is still a relatively unpopular activity.

Overall, 6.6 per cent of adults said they had downloaded audio podcasts within the last 30 days, and 4 per cent had downloaded video podcasts. Since the question has only been recently added to the survey, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings spokeswoman, there is no data available for 2004 to allow for a growth comparison. (Blogging came in even lower at 4.8 per cent.)

"We can expect to see [podcast downloading] become increasingly popular as portable content media players proliferate," said Michael Lanz, a Nielsen/NetRatings analyst.

Internet users in the 18-to-24 age group are twice as likely to download audio podcasts than the average online adult. When it comes to video podcasts, however, the 25-to-34 age group downloads the most, and follow a close second for audio downloads, the report said.

The majority of people who download audio or video podcasts use Safari, hinting that Apple users may download the most podcasts. Firefox came in second overall. Internet Explorer came in a distant third among audio podcast downloaders, and AOL was third among video podcast downloaders.

Audio downloaders also seem to be interested in trainers. According to the report, the No. 1 e-commerce site among audio downloaders was Niketown.com, not a music-downloading site as one might expect. (The site is Nike's official online store, not a Web site affiliated with the Nike+iPod playlists.) In fact, iTunes came in third. Apple's Web site was second.

The statistic is particularly interesting given the recent Nike+iPod sneaker launch. But is the coincidence a cause or an effect?