The future of Podcasting and Web 2.0

Podcasting and Web 2.0 are both integral to society today. Both have become so popular and will continue to grow and become more popular in the future. People will become more dependant on Web 2.0 and Podcasting in the future, as both will continue to grow and become “normalized” in the future.
To begin, let us take a look at podcasting and where it could potentially be heading. In 2005, 1 million internet users per week would download a podcast. By 2010, it is predicted that 18 million internet users per week will download a podcast. (http://www.bridgeratings.com/Images/The%20Future%20of%20Podcasting%20Slides_files/frame.htm)
To me, this seems reasonably correct because almost every major internet site has podcasts that are available to stream and download. The reason for this is because of the rapid change of technology and the emergence of the mp3 formatted file. Podcasting is the future of digital audio. For instance, some professors at University of Toronto will podcast their lectures so that students can access them on the internet. This is an example of how popular podcasting has become. We see it everywhere. Experts predict in the near future that video and audio files will be pushed through the RSS feed. (http://www.podcastblaster.com/podcasting-the-future.html) These experts also predict that in the future, companies will develop new products to make podcasting more accessible to the public. So we can see that in the future, podcasting will continue to grow and become more accessible to the public. It will continue to grow as it will become more and more popular in the future.
In regards to the future of Web 2.0, software will continue to be more advanced and capable for hosting multimedia content. According to Bill Gates, "Every year we just move to more of a digital environment. We take away the older approaches." (http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/1/28/6781) Web 2.0 and Podcasting almost go hand in hand. As Web 2.0 continues to grow, so does the development of podcasting. As Bill Gates said, the internet is moving to more of a digital environment and we can expect Web 2.0 to be more digitalized then ever in the future. Things such as online storage devices and personal media will continue to get better in the future. We will be able to use our computer as a television, as there may almost be no existence for televisions in the future. Gates also says that in 5 years, we will look back and laugh at what we had now because Web 2.0 will continue to grow and emerge as time goes on.