The iPod is dead, but the podcast continues

Pour One for the iPod, the sweet little gadget of my teenage dreams. While Apple finally stopped This week’s latest iPod modelThe Capsule lives in the digital audio medium we all love and obsess over.

The iPod was never the format in which audio streaming (which would be the smartphone) boomed, but at the time the podcasts started, the iPod was pretty much the only game in town. In 2004, iPod dominates 60 percent of the total MP3 player market. It was the default option for listening to audio shows on the go, if not elegant.

“It was a horrible experience,” says Leo Laporte, founder of the early digital audio outlet. This week in Tech (TwiT) and radio show host tech man. “You had to download it to your computer, connect your computer via iTunes to your iPod, copy it to your iPod, and then you could listen to it.”

But with the gadget so ubiquitous, the name “podcast” seemed like a natural fit for the unsettled internet podcasts that were just beginning to emerge. It is normal for two people to claim that they combined “iPod” and “streaming” together separately. First instance recorded in 2004 guardian Article – Commodity By journalist and technologist Ben Hammersley where he gave a talk about possible names for the medium (“GuerillaMedia” has not been discovered). That same year, digital audio pioneer Dannie Gregoire called one of his shows a “podcaster” and registered domain names that included the word “podcast,” then popularize it with help From former MTV VJ and former podcast host Adam Curry. Gregoire says he wasn’t aware of Hammersley’s article before the name came up. “It’s an axiom, given the technology,” he said. Hammersley did not respond to a request for comment.

Either way, I caught. Apple not only let the word live, despite potential trademark infringement, but also I embraced the mediator wholeheartedly By creating a podcast directory in iTunes in 2005. In the same year, George W. Bush has begun to be released His presidential radio titles are in podcast form. The New Oxford American Dictionary noticed all the hype and made a ‘podcast’ Her speech for 2005.

Not everyone was happy. for years, Laporte killer — and they lost — the battle to rename “audio broadcasting” as “webcasting,” arguing that the word tied the model too closely to Apple. Time has proven that he was right and wrong. Yes, the iPod was a passing phase in playing podcasts. But the word has transcended the name itself to the point that Apple is just one part of the podcast ecosystem and not even the dominant one. Spotify took its crown As the most widely used platform for podcasting, Apple’s programming for podcasts is minimal at best.

However, the word is inevitable. A few years ago, LaPorte relented and finally changed the TWiT Netcast to the TWiT Podcast Network. “This is the language,” he said. “You can’t fight it.”

This story originally ran hot podAnd the edgeNotable Audio Industry Bulletin. You can subscribe here For more information, analysis and reporting.