Dumb 'Podcast' Name Reason Zune Is Podcast-Unfriendly?

November 10, 2006

So Microsoft doesn't have podcast-friendly features built into their 'iPod-killer.' Some bloggers say it's due to the name 'podcasting' and its reference to its main rival in this domain: Apple. What with Apple sending folks cease and desist orders for their use of "podcast"-related words who could blame them? Not that Apple created the name or the method.

Some cheekily predict that if Microsoft does choose to offer podcast tools that they will probably be called "Zunecasts." Creative, maker of the Zen line of media players and another company wary of using a name suggesting a competitor's trademark, tried something similar by trying to redefine the meaning of "podcast." Or rather: P.O.D.Cast, "Personal On Demand broadCast."

Which all comes back to an old argument: that "podcast" is a dumb name. It was created by a journalist in an article in early 2004. It caught on with early adopters and was amplified by the "Pod Father" Adam Curry.

If anything, this provides a good lesson on how not to name a "general use" techie thing: Don't include (even a portion) of a trademarked name as part of your word - unless of course you want to see fragmented adoption and a confused public.

This leads me to recall my original grumblings about the term "podcast" when the name first hit the scene over two years ago. Here's an excerpt from a comment on this post dated Oct 10, 2004 - as the name had picked up steam.

I would argue... that there is a problem that stems from the fact that "Podcast" is a faulty and ill-advised term. No one "Podcasting" that I know of is broadcasting specifically to a "pod": ie, to an iPod or any other mobile audio device. They are compressing their content, whatever it is, into the mp3 format and creating an RSS document that describes that mp3 file. That's it. Then, that RSS is being read by all types of RSS-consuming applications, on desktops and on mobile devices.

In other words, no one podcasts. They make their media available in a commonly understood format and all types of devices and applications (such as Big Contact's web-based Feed Players) play them.

And history has proven me right: only a small percentage of podcasts actually make it to Apple's iPods. One report suggested that 90% or so of podcasts are consumed on the desktop.

Non-proprietary names have been bandied about. Microsoft itself has played with the term "blogcast" to incorporate all types of personal media syndication. "Mediacasting" may be a more accurate, though uninspired, term. Here are some more ridiculous "-casting" terms from that post in 2004:

And when the authors of this content publish their creations via MP3-RSS they are not specifcally 'Podcasting' but are potentially 'Podcasting' (mobile devices) AND 'Deskcasting' (desktop apps) and even, for WiFi home stereo users 'Dencasting.' Ha. In other words they are 'multicasting'... or better yet, they are 'Metacasting' as they have no control over the distribution of the content other than properly describing the meta information in a format that a wide variety of applications can understand.

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