FeedBurner, the most popular business tool in media distribution and the highly preferred distribution tool of podcasters and bloggers, worldwide, attracts major industry buzz with the breaking news that it will be bought by Google for a hefty $100 million price tag.

It has been revealed that the $100 million acquisition is all cash and primarily upfront, but the FeedBurner founders will be contractually locked for at least two years. The formal signing of the purchase agreement will be completed in two or three weeks.

This is definitely huge news, but comes as little surprise to Google-watchers. They typically buy companies whom they've identified as being capable of dominating a particular service like RSS distribution. FeedBurner has a great product and offers terrific service and a large database of faithful, regular users.

A report from Nielsen/NetRatings even said that FeedBurner is growing faster than MySpace and Digg in terms of traffic growth which, doubtless, has something to do with the exploding market in podcasting and blogging. FeedBurner is extremely popular with podcasters and bloggers primarily because they can efficiently serve the increased demand for media distribution. The prevailing hope is that Feedburners' new alliance with Google won't disrupt or dilute their services.

Comscore, a Reston, VA-based, leading global Internet information provider, released its latest study on the habits of Internet users. This recent study profiled the iTunes podcasting audience. The study revealed that males between 18-24 years of age are more likely to download podcasts via iTunes and that podcasting is also popular among 35-54 year olds.  The latter is a bit surprising, but not unexpected. 

But the news that higher-income and better-educated consumer segments are predominately the audience for podcasting is sweet music to the ears of podcasters and advertisers, everywhere.

This study by ComScore will definitely get advertisers rocking as it confirms what many in the podosphere have suspected for some time - there are indeed noteworthy advertising opportunities in podcasting across several consumer demographics. Advertisers may now realize that while podcast listeners don't yet approach critical mass, they can surely target those higher-income and better-educated consumers who tend to have more disposable income, and who happen to utilize and enjoy the latest high-tech tools and media.

Well, our last news byte today is somewhat humorous, but no less important for all that. The question of the day is: What happens to your old mobile phone every time you upgrade to a new model?

Well, listen to this: A brand new campaign is underway in Australia to get Aussies to recycle their old mobile phone handsets. Until the end of June, a tree will be planted for every mobile phone handset handed in for recycling.

But this campaign - launched by celebrities in Sydney on Wednesday - has a green twist.

Miss Universe entrant, Erin McNaught, was among personalities who gathered in Sydney to try to plant the seed of the idea about phone recycling.

McNaught was joined by Hawthorn AFL player Shane Crawford, TV personality Jeannie Little, Paralympian Michael Milton and former Olympic swimmer Elka Graham.

The "Old Phones, New Trees" campaign is being run by the mobile phone industry's official recycling program, in partnership with Landcare.

Well, that's our top tech news byte stories for today, May 24^th, 2007. We'll back tomorrow with another show.