In the last year or so, everybody and their mother seems to have taken time off from the social media fad of the day to blog that podcasting is dead:

• Information Week says podcasting is dead.
• John Dvorak says podcasting is dead.
• The Bioscience Education Journal says podcasting is dead.
• PodShow thinks podcasting is dead, so it changed its name to Mevio.

Somebody forgot to tell Urban Outfitters, though. That, or they know that the audience for podcasts grew about 40% in the last year.

Urban Outfitters is selling a $120 Podcasting Kit.

You know – for the kids!

The Ion Audio U Cast features a USB microphone, headphones, sound editing software and tools for publishing your podcast. It’s compatible with MAC (OSX or greater) and PC (Windows XP or Vista) compatible.

It’s interesting to see a podcasting kit mass marketed by a major retailer – but we’ve seen the Ion U Cast kit sell for a lot less!