Podcasting and Podjacking

According to Podcast Alley, there are 13,049 registered podcasts with 335,480 episodes. The popularity of podcasting has exploded since the first podcast in late 2004.

Podcasting, a portmanteau of Apple's "iPod" and "broadcasting", is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by subscription, usually at no cost. The files can be downloaded to iPod automatically using iTunes and other tools.

Podjacking is a problem that arises lately and will cause a serious threat to the growth of podcasting. As a podcaster, the URL you create for your RSS feed becomes the doorway through which your entire listenership arrives. Every single one of your listeners will come in through this doorway. Moreover, it is this URL that iTunes, Yahoo, Podcast Alley, and all the other podcast search engines will use in order to bring listeners to your show.

As in the case blogging, podcasters rely heavily on search engines to reach millions of audience. If another URL which is own by third party is pointing to your show, you have been podjacked!

Erik Marcus wrote an article on the problem.