One of my Google News alerts pointed me to this article on CBC.ca that says that the growth in podcasting has been a lot slower that many were anticipating. When poled, 13% of Americans have downloaded a podcast "ever" up from 11% last year. Considering the initial explosive growth of podcast listening in the past couple of years, with estimates as high as 25% of Americans listening, this seems like pretty anemic growth. Have we already reached the point where everyone who's interested has started downloading, or are we just in the lull before mass adoption?
There's an idea outlined in a book called Crossing the Chasm that says there's a difficult point in any product's adoption where early adopters are happily using whatever it is but use hasn't made the "leap" to the early majority yet. Countless products have gotten enthusiastic, even rapturous, receptions from the early adopters and bleeding edge technologists and then totally failed to capture a significant share of the majority of consumers. Think Tivo: no one I know who has lived with Tivo or another DVR says they could ever go back, and yet Tivo has yet to breach into truly widespread adoption.
So, the real question is whether podcasting is going to "cross the chasm" and start getting into 20, 30, or even 50% adoption. And of course, does it matter? One of the great things about the Internet is the ability for groups of people to thrive in "micro niches" that wouldn't possibly be big enough to support a local store, activity club, or music scene but the wide access on the Internet makes it possible. Can podcasting still be revolutionary if only 15% of people ever listen? And is requiring a revolution too heavy a burden? Is it enough for a new technology to be merely interesting?