Month: July 2016

The Podcast Audience is Growing

According to the Pew Research Center’s State of the Media Report for 2016, 21% of respondents said they had listened to a podcast in the past month. That’s up from 17% in 2015, and was only 12% in 2013. Listening is also moving over towards mobile – they say 65% of those who listen to podcasts say they most often do it on a mobile device. (Makes sense – almost all of my listening is during walks or while driving.) Only about half of the respondents were familiar with the term “podcast” so there is still lots of room for audience growth.

The amount of time listening to podcasts make up only 2% of the time spent consuming audio – compared to 54% of the time spent listening to AM/FM radio.

There are more details at http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/podcasting-fact-sheet/.

Does Pokémon Go Create a Privacy Breach?

Yes, it does appear that initially Pokémon Go  could cause privacy problems, since it asks iOS for full access to a user’s Google account. (And Google has lots of information about you.) But independent tests seem to show that they only info that gets collected is your user ID and email address. The developer, Niantic, is changing the app so that it only asks for the basic information. So, it doesn’t appear that you have to worry about privacy issues – you only have to worry about stepping in front of a car or falling down an open manhole while walking down the street staring at your phone. Note that the Android version did not ask for all the privileges, so it doesn’t need fixed. See more details about this at Ars Technica.