by Lee Gibbons, Podango CEO

Four very successful podcasters, today offered their views on the rapidly expanding podcast industry to a hotel ballroom filled with attendees at the Syndicate Conference in midtown Manhattan. Some of the most prolific and popular bloggers, blogosphere web application leaders, and those wishing to get their arms around new media and its applications listened while the hosts of MommyCast, American Family, and Sci-Fi Pocast novel author Scott Siggler (EarthCore) told how they got started in podcasting. Despite the varied formats of their podcasts, and the motives for their creation, each podcaster sited the ease and low cost of getting started in podcasting as the common denominator of their start with the new media.

For Gretchen Vogelzang, mother of two, who’s husband brought home the idea of podcasting, it was obvious. Podcasts are portable and delivered at the sporadic whim of busy Moms. She and her husband talked and shortly arrived at the concept: two Moms talking about being Moms, just like two Moms do every day, but so that other women would be able to listen in and participate, if only by listening, to adult conversation. But who would she choose for Mom #2? She chose a friend whom she had met through her son’s Cub Scout troop, Paige Heninger, mother of five. The two of them, with simple podcasting equipment and Gretchen’s husband at the controls, recorded their first podcast. 86 podcast episodes later, they have at least 150 thousand listeners and no end in sight. Gretchen as begun a podcast around another area of passion for her; dance.

Like the podcasting mommies, Audrey Reed-Granger, an employee (Marketing Executive) of Whirlpool discovered podcasts through her husband. He was listening to NPR and explained that they are basically like radio shows people download via the Internet and listen to whenever they want. The lights went on for Audrey immediately, she said to her husband, “We should do that!” He said, “Us?” To which she replied, “No! Whirlpool.”

That Tuesday, she went to her boss and got immediate approval to go ahead. Now, she produces the show twice per week, at night after her son goes to bed. For her, the vision that has driven the success of the podcast is “all about helping [families] live their lives… about connecting.” She reported in her panel discussion today that while floating the idea with her Whirlpool superiors and entertaining the idea, she was asked typical questions related to ROI and she was able to say, “Hey, this is nothing… $139.00 for the Apple iLife software for my Mac,” pointing out how inexpensive and easy it is to get started in podcasting and just how far tools like GarageBand 3 (included in iLife) have come to make it easy to get started.

As for Scott Sigler, he found himself Googling for sci-fi podcasts so that he could consume them and found that basically no one was doing it, so he started. He says his first episodes of EarthCore were “pretty rough” but that he worked it out over time. He also stated that he had been involved with audio recording for years, so podcasting was no big deal for him.

So, in the end, each of these successful podcasters sites the ease with which they were able to start as key to their nearly serendipitous success. I believe the rapid growth of podcasting is largely due to this factor.

And sites like Evoca.com, Odeo.com that make podcasting from any PC a snap, including the ability to simply call a number assigned to your account and podcast over the phone. For VoIP fans, Skype has a solution as well …. Skypecasts, where you may record your calls and make them Podcasts.

So, what are you waiting for? If you have a passion for a hobby, career focus, political bent, axe to grind? Getting started is affordable and not so difficult you shouldn’t at least give it a try.

And once you have caught the podcast fever, and you can see that you would like to work toward monetizing your efforts, there is no better context for topically specific podcasts to grow up in than within one of our Podango go!Stations. In this type of environment you can receive support from fellow podcasters, your Station Director who owns the go!Station, and the capable and friendly staff at Podango, who will also help you line up sponsors and/or advertisers. Capable podcasters audition their podcasts for existing stations, or some even apply to own a go!Station for their area of interest and build a media property out of their podcast and others that serves their community of interest.

Other podcast networks also offer advertising and networking opportunities. My favorite Podango alternatives currently include PodShow Podcast Delivery Network, and Liberated Syndication. They have different models, and strengths of their own. I like that they are enabling podcasting to grow, and I believe that natural evolutionary forces will bring the market in our direction. Time alone will tell.

The bottom line is that the podcasting market is growing extremely quickly, and this is a great time to jump in and become part of it all.