• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 14, 2005

Online audio seller Audible late last week launched a suite of Web-based tools to track the life of a podcast beyond its initial download.

Coined AudibleWordcast, the product is intended to enable podcasters to build revenue streams around ad management, ad-insertion, underwriting, and secured transactions, according to Donald Katz, chairman and CEO of Audible.

"Producers can now use these tools to create multiple revenue streams and control their costs and risk at the same time," Katz said in a statement.

Since the podcasting trend began, many marketers have overlooked it as a potential ad medium because of podcasts' apparent immeasurability. The audio files could not be tracked because no link existed between the Internet and the software built into iPods and similar listening devices.

But, because the Wordcast platform plays on Apple's iPod, as well as 160 other devices in Audible's .aa file format--according to Audible--the company can now measure how much of any file has been played, as well as which ads were played.

The cost to podcasters using Wordcast is five cents per download, and one cent per ad inserted into a single podcast.

Audible says Wordcast is an "audit-ready" podcasting platform, capable of measuring actual subscribers. The company's TrueListener audience measurement system reports the metrics required by advertisers, which are determined audit-ready through third-party media auditor, ImServices Group.

The company posted healthy third-quarter earnings earlier this month. Revenue rose to $17 million, from $9 million a year earlier. During the quarter, which ended Sept. 30, Audible drew 79,800 customers--almost 62,000 of which were members of Audible monthly membership plan AudibleListener.