eMarketer released a report today stating that the podcast audience for 2007 was 18.5 million with 6.5 million of those being active (downloading one or more podcasts weekly).

The outlook is for 2012 is that the podcast audience will reach 65 million with 25 million of those being active as described above!

They also state that “along with a larger audience comes increases in advertising spending tied to podcasts.” (bring on the money!)

It just makes sense! Podcasting is the future of new media and it’s here to stay and will grow tremendously. Companies need to jump into this medium today to take advantage of the “newness” of this technology so that they are considered “innovators” because in 5 years, everyone will be there and you will be just another company making a podcast.

Remember just 15 years ago, when the Web was just barely starting out. Many people thought it was a fad. Well, many of those companies are now no longer in business.

Something to think about. Read more about the report at eMarketer.com