iTunes Genius’s Possible Impact on New Media

With the release of iTunes Genius in iTunes 8 (which I’ve been playing with for a day or so now), I realized that there is a metric that they’re not capturing that they could capture that would revolutionize podcast reporting (for good or bad, I’m not sure).

The number one question corporate types ask me about podcasting is if they can track how many plays their podcast has on devices, because with DRM’d (Digital Rights Management, or protected files) files you can do such things (which is one of the big reasons so many people like DRM - p.s., I loathe it) if the device plays along.  I’ve always bristled against such things, especially the level of tracking that’s available on email newsletters (tracking exactly who read what and clicked on what, and tying it to personal information).  I’ve always bristled against such non-anonymous targeting and don’t allow my company to participate in it (and I’ve lost accounts because I won’t do it).

However, I was thinking about it, and realizing that iTunes Genius could be the bridge that those customers want who want specific tracking - and Apple could make a pretty penny licensing the information in aggregate if they tied it to podcasts.  Sure, it’d be an aggregate number, but good enough for our purposes and more information that we had before.  And no nasty DRM software.  Everyone wins, except again, it’s only a snapshot because you still need the opt-in of iTunes Genius.  But better than what we have.

After all, once the podcast is on the iPod, except for little bursts found on sites like Last.FM you don’t know a layer of statistics (time played, number of plays, if it was just marked “played” but never played).

Your thoughts?  Or is this more data you don’t want captured, even if it’s “anonymous?”  Are downloads and methods enough for advertisers to make decisions?