Serendipity35

I read an article about podcasting on emarketer.com that got me thinking about who is downloading our podcasts from iTunes U. Of course, that article is looking at this from a marketing point of view, not an educational perspective. Then again, schools are also starting to look at the marketing aspects of podcasting in the same way that they look at their Web site and their online presence.

Apple provides iTunes U schools with weekly stats on the number of downloads, subscribers etc. and you can tell how many users come from the njit.edu domain and how many are from off campus. But that's not all that helpful from a marketing perspective.

How many of those off campus users are students, faculty, staff and alumni? Where (geographically) are our users coming from? Who are they? How old are they?

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Projectstudy conducted back in early 2006, Internet users who had been online for six or more years were twice as likely to have downloaded a podcast as someone online for three years or less. Does that mean they're older or just more Net savvy?

If you look at Podtrac, iTunes accounts for 75% of all podcast downloads. How should we attract the other 25% of the crowd? I read that the general podcast downloader is a male, and educated. Half of the podcasting audience is made up of people between the ages of 35 and 54. Is that who is downloading our podcasts?

I'm not a marketing person and I don't see the university paying to subscribe to something like ComScore. So, with all my questions here, I guess what I'm asking you is for suggestions on analyzing your podcast audience.

Is anyone using a technique, tool or service that gives them what I am looking for?