14.10.04

Podcasting: What's in a Name?

The name is fine. It's strange, it's funny and it has all the weird connotations to make it stick. Remember Walkman! Some disagree and suggestions are flying around. But .. renaming podcast producers to .. "broadcasters"? Why so puritanical? Many early adopters download podcasts manually to their pc or laptop without using (or sometimes even having) ipodder software. Does the fact that they don't get the mp3's automagically mean they won't call the programs "podcasts"? Of course not. The skeptics are right about the 'Pod'-part though. For many, it indeed implies the need for an Apple iPod. That's why i don't understand the guys at ipodder.org, who still use the subtitle 'The resource for the iPod platform'. iPodder.org is the site people come to for basic information about podcasting, so they should know better! But it could, after all, turn out to be an advantage. By slowing down the influx of the potentially huge mass of Windows users, the developers and pioneers get more time to fix some of the bugs, develop much more advanced features and content and ponder about the lingering and really daunting problem of outbound bandwidth.

2 Comments:

At 9:03 AM, Blogger NT said...

Yeah, I gotta admit, as well as Apple is doing right now, they ain't got enough money to buy all the publicity the 'pod' word has garnered for them. I never had any intention of buying an iPod (and have been known to snicker when seeing someone carrying one) but they've got a skeptic like me now following news about the super-secret next iPod to be released before the holidays.

I wonder if it will eventually lose it's brand identity ala kleenex and xerox and now google?

I knew I shoulda bought some of that Apple stock about a year ago... :-)

 
At 7:04 PM, Blogger Editor said...

Well, Sony sold a zillion "Walkman's", but the rest did a good job of catching up. And that was in the ancient days..

 

Post a Comment

<< Home