A new report by Nielsen/NetRatings looks at the online behavior of podcast and vlog consumers. It's got some interesting statistics: the most popular web site for podcast listeners is Macworld.com (not the most popular podcast; they didn't report that information) while vlog viewers like to hit StarTrek.com, which surprised me since Star Trek has been in the doldrums for the last few years.

The most popular Web browser among podcaster listners is Safari, and overall the research seems to indicate that Macheads are big podcast consumers. In my experience, they're also the big producers, so that makes sense. I was surprised that 18-24 year olds were the most likely to listen to podcasts; I would have expected 25-34 year olds, partly because that's my demographic (at least until December), partly because of the podcasts I listen to, and partly because of how I've seen people start listening to podcasts, which is through commuting. 25-34 year olds were the most likely to download vlogs, which is interesting -- I'm not sure why they'd favor video to audio. They were also avid audio consumers though, second behind the college crowd.

Perhaps most interesting was that in the survey, podcasts were more popular than blogs (6.6 percent of people listening to podcasts, vs. 4.8 percent for blogs). I'll be interested to see what happens when the power of podcasts starts catching up with its statistics -- blogs have have a significant effect on reporting and politics over the last few years, and I just haven't seen podcasts packing that sort of punch yet. Then again, maybe we're seeing it in a different light: I'm willing to bet that there some sort of "podcast bump" being seen by certain companies as their products are talked about on the different podcasts. Heck, just within my own gaming group we've seen a bunch of purchases that were directly influenced by reviews or discussions on the podcasts we listen to.