Covering tech via podcasts

John Kalish of The New York Times profiles TWIT, a California-based site run by Leo Laporte that covers the tech industry via free podcasts.

Kalish writes, “Nerdy, yes. Silly, no. TWIT gets its name from Mr. Laporte’s flagship podcast, ‘This Week in Tech,’ which is downloaded by a quarter of a million people each week. He produces 22 other technology-focused podcasts that are downloaded five million times a month. He also streams video all day long that captures his podcasting and a weekend radio show on computers, ‘The Tech Guy,’ that reaches 500,000 more people through 140 stations.

“‘I don’t want to be just a carbon copy of existing media,’ said Mr. Laporte, who at 54 is just old enough to remember using carbon paper in typewriters to make duplicates.

“Advertisers, especially technology companies, appreciate Mr. Laporte’s reach. Mark McCrery, chief executive of Podtrac, which is based in Washington, and measures podcast audiences and sells advertising, said TWIT’s advertising revenue doubled in each of the last two years and was expected to total $4 million to $5 million for 2010.

“Starting at $40 per thousand listeners, TWIT’s ad rates are among the highest in American podcasting and are considerably higher than commercial broadcasting rates, which are typically $5 to $15 per thousand listeners.”

Read more here.