I'm supporting the Open Metrics Initiative, a group working on questions about metrics and what the best way is to measure podcast data. The current site describes the project like this:
The Open Metrics Initiative was developed in the summer and fall of 2006 in and among several PodCamp unconference meetings in several cities, to address how best to measure podcast performance and audience demographics. Supporters and future signatories are an affiliation of commercial and non-commercial organizations, and individuals that have a stake in the development and maintenance of methods and systems that achieve the following goals:
Develop accurate and dependable metrics that can be applied and replicated across the entire spectrum of the podcast-sphere on a voluntary basis; Create open measurement standards that encourage consistent data collection and distribution schemes within all participating member organizations; Ensure that collected data will not be used in ways that deteriorate the integrity of the metrics collection process or threaten the individual identity rights of the participant, including protecting against data hoarding/balkanization, email harvesting, targeted marketing, and other profit-motivated initiatives that disenfranchise individuals and competing organizations; Rigorously implement policies and systems that provide for data portability, such that podcasters and their audiences are free to associate with all participating producers, service providers and advertisers.
CURRENT PROJECT: The group's first project involves crafting a unified podcast audience survey standard so that advertisers, podcast service providers, podcast producers and their audiences may openly collect and share information that advances knowledge of audience demographics.
If you're interested, get in touch with the initiative by emailing openmetrics [at] gmail.com