Are people listening to podcasts?

Until “my recent post assessing the Lumia”:http://theludwigs.com/2012/04/am-i-still-using-the-lumia/, I have never had a person in the last 5 years mention to me that they are listening to podcasts, nor have I seen a startup pitch mentioning them in the last several years.

Usually if something is in heavy use, I will bump into people talking about. But maybe there are people I don’t know doing this. Personally I don’t listen to talk radio, I listen to music – either my own, or off of spotify. But I’ve had comments on facebook, twitter, and here defending podcasts, so maybe I need to refresh my view of podcasts. Are people listening to a lot of podcasts? Are real humans (ie outside of the tech industry) listening to podcasts?

Whatever their use, I’ll stand by my view that putting podcasts on the first page of the marketplace is dumb – they don’t generate revenue. The whole first page of the marketplace is just a list of containers, this is even dumber. The first page should immediately present me buying offers – the special of the day/week; the hottest apps that I don’t have; the best recommendation for me based on what I already use. And then measure the hell out engagement and dynamically display new offers. Sure you need a “Browse” button in case people want to pore through the whole catalog but that is not the first thing I should see. This is not rocket science, take tips from the Apple App Store or the Steam Store or other leading app marketplaces.