• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 8, 2006

Search marketing and analytics firm Oneupweb on Monday unveiled a new podcast tracking service that will run on its servers rather than through metering technology linked to a panel of users.

Geared toward the corporate market, the PodTractor technology will provide data such as the top podcasts and episodes, the top referring podcast directories, and subscriber versus non-subscriber downloads. It will also include weekly and monthly trend graphs and audience loyalty tracking.

By offering a hosted service, Oneupweb aims to differentiate itself from competing podcast services from companies such as Audible and Podbridge that require listeners to download tracking software from their sites. Nielsen Media Research has said it plans to add a 400-person panel of iPod users by year-end. Separately, Arbitron last year began touting the use of its portable people meter for tracking podcasts.

Oneupweb CEO Lisa Wehr said the company will charge clients $100 to $1,000 monthly for PodTractor, depending on how many podcasts they host and the length of individual episodes. She added that the service already has about a dozen clients.

Recently, podcasts have attracted a relatively small but dedicated audience. A report released late last month by Nielsen Analytics revealed that the most succesful podcasts draw up to 2 million downloads a month, and that more than 6 percent of U.S. adults--about 9 million Web users--had downloaded podcasts in the prior 30 days.