Below is the sad notice sent to Podango customers. This is one of the reason as a podcaster and author of Niche Podcasting I recommend self hosting your podcasts. Yes it eats up a lot of bandwidth on your web hosting server but you avoid issues like is happening right now to those folks who relied on a free third-party service like Podango.

I’m truly saddened that Podango’s future is in doubt. I loved their model of sharing ad revenue with podcasters but just as we have to worry about the price of bandwidth it made me nervous to host my podcast with free hosting service providers like Podango. Unless Google was to buy them I would be hesitant to host any of my long-term podcasts with a third-service free host.

The same goes for your RSS feed. The bread and butter of podcasting is the ease of syndicating your podcast with RSS so don’t leave that in the hands of free hosting companies. There are a lot of podcasters right now trying to redirect their feed from Podango to another solution.

I recommend Feedburner for your RSS feeds. It’s the best of way of ensuring your RSS feed will still work regardless of where your hosting your podcast.

This has been an eye opener for me. I was devoting a chapter to Podango in my 2009 update to Niche Podcasting but now I’ll continue to recommend hosting your own podcasts.

Here is the notice from Podango on ceasing operations:

Dear Podango Customers (Podcasters and Station Directors)

We at Podango believe that you, our customers, are our most valuable asset. Given this belief, we have always done our best to be honest and forthright in our dealings with you. The current uncertainties of the financial market has affected many of us in this nation. As of this morning, Podango is no longer immune to it’s effects. Our ability to continue operations past the end of this year (2008) is in question. We do not want any of you, or any of your shows to be negatively affected by this uncertainty and so we are encouraging you to begin taking all necessary steps to secure your data or begin moving to another hosting provider.  On Monday we will have a more definitive direction. As of today, the last day to move or secure your data is December 31st. RSS feeds will need to be redirected by this date as well. It is our hope that the events of the next few days will allow us to continue providing you a service based upon a subscription fee. Again, we will know more on Monday and you will be notified of any changes to the above plan as soon as we are made aware of them.

We will have a link in the My Podango section of the Podcasters login page by Monday which will allow you to redirect your RSS feed off of the Podango feed to a new feed. Instructions will accompany that tool. Also on Monday we will provide you with alternatives for show hosting.

Inactive accounts, those without recent uploads or downloads, may be already been deleted from the system. If you need to contact us, please use info@podango.com.

Again I personally apologize for this notice of caution. We truly appreciate your business.

Doug

Douglas G. Smith
President – Podango

According to eMarketer, the U.S. podcast audience grew to 18.5 million in 2007 and is on track to increase 251 percent to 65 million in 2012.

Almost everyone agrees that podcasting is a wonderful new media tool to reach people and brand yourself but many have asked if any is really listening to podcasts.  This study answers that question-loud and clear.  Yes!

As the US podcasting industry matures it is unquestionably creating a listening audience,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst.

The eMarketer study has also discovered a welcome byproduct of this growth of podcast listeners which is the monetization of podcasts.  Driven by this audience growth, US spending on podcast-related advertising (including sponsorships) will rise to $435 million in 2012, up from $165 million in 2007.

The eMarketer study attributes a number of factors that are driving the growth of the podcast-user base:

• Greater ease of consumption for podcast content
• Growing awareness of podcasting
• Terrestrial radio’s use and promotion of podcasting
• Increased penetration of portable players
• The evolution of smart phones and proliferation of affordable mobile data plans

I’ve been an early adapter and continue to be a strong advocate of podcasting.  I have seen the positive effects of podcasting in my businesses.  My e-book, Niche Podcasting will show the Internet marketer how take advantage of this spectaculor growth of podcasting right now.  As the popularity of podcasting continues to growth so will those entering the field.  So now is the perfect time to start podcasting.  By the time the herd mentality takes hold of podcasting and everyone starts flocking to it you will already be an established podcaster.