Newsday is the latest New York-area newspaper to jump on the podcasting bandwagon. Podcasting may not yet be a mainstream technology, but the promise is boundless, according to one academic at Columbia University interviewed for the story. Already, there are 4,500 podcasts and 6 million podcast listeners nationwide, plus a vast untapped international marketplace.

What's cool is that initial efforts to integrate podcasting into a broader overall business strategy have been successful. The New York Sharks women's professional football team, for example, has found that podcasting has been a relatively cheap way to extend their audience and brand to new markets. At WNYC/93.9 FM, which started podcasting earlier this year, the results have been especially impressive:

"On the Media, the first NPR podcast, doubled its online listeners in four weeks and each show now gets 11,000 downloads... That rivals a midsize media market, like Kansas City or St. Louis."

A bit of shameless promotion: the article also highlights Gregory Narain (a Corante contributor and podcasting pioneer) and his efforts to bring podcasting to the masses.