[Update May 6: The survey closed on May 1 and the preliminary results have been published today – see The influence of the global FIR community and downloadable presentation from Slideshare.]

Three years ago, in April 2006, we conducted our first listener survey in order to help us understand more about our listeners and the kinds of things they like (and dislike) about our podcast.

That survey gave us a great deal of useful information at the time that helped us develop the podcast, taking into account everything everyone said.

A lot has changed in three years, though.

We have two sponsors now: Ragan Communications and CustomScoop. For Immediate Release has grown well beyond the core Hobson and Holtz Report to embrace a total of six podcasts today including the monthly FIR Live on BlogTalk Radio.

We’re also fortunate to have a team of correspondents, established and valuable elements of The Hobson and Holtz Report podcast.

And one other major change in the three years since our last (and first) listener survey is how the FIR community has developed and become an even more important element of the overall ‘FIR experience’ via the FIR Room on Friendfeed and also via Twitter.

We think it’s the right time to find out if FIR and, specifically, The Hobson and Holtz Report, really is in tune with our community. Is it a podcast that contains the content we think that people want? What about specific content elements in each show? What do listeners like best? Least? Where do people listen? How do they get hold of the MP3 files? And so on.

So if you’re a listener to The Hobson and Holtz Report, we’d like to ask you to invest 20 minutes of your time and take the 2009 FIR Listener Survey. The survey on SurveyGizmo is open now and closes at midday GMT on Friday May 1, 2009. We’ll announce the results during May.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/123833/fir-listener-survey-2009

Thanks for your help and your support.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)