Based on what I have seen thus far, I am going to go on record as saying that podcast advertising can work - sometimes. In order for any news source to have success with this, they must have a firm grasp of the risk of alienation that can come about during that time they are trying to find a happy medium between generating revenue and pissing off the reader.

But in the end, there has to be a balance. Writers, publishers and the rest of the lot must be paid some how. And as things move more and more away from email publishing, content providers from all over the Internet will continue to push the envelope. Or perhaps in this case, it would be pushing the feed?

RSS (define), the means by which Web publishers can easily distribute their content to users who opt in to receive it, still has a fairly low intentional user adoption rate. An October 2005 Yahoo! study finds only 4 percent of the online user population has knowingly used RSS. With such a low adoption rate, one might hardly expect to see advertising in an RSS feed, but it’s out there. Heck, if someone can sell ad space on his forehead, why not in RSS feeds?

Though certain advertisers can currently succeed at RSS advertising, advertisers who buy RSS advertising to reach the masses right now shouldn’t set their expectations very high.

Quick State of RSS

Given the low adoption rate, you might be able to guess the typical RSS user profile: college-educated males, 18-34, with above-average household incomes. If you’re thinking of buying RSS advertising now, keep this demographic in mind.

Far more publishers than users have adopted RSS. Publisher statistics are more elusive than consumer stats, but go to any major online publisher and you’re almost assured to find the little orange RSS/XML subscription button next to the content. RSS’s main advantages are that it’s a spam-free, opt-in, direct-to-consumer, economical means to deliver information. Who wouldn’t want to exploit it? Source: ClickZ Network