Talk:Podcast/Archive 8

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Can you have it both ways? Maybe?

not really happy with the etymology for "podcast" as it is written now. It is a case of maybe needing to explain two things to readers. obviously the iPod and broadcasting are key in its' definition, but just as obvious is the acronym for "POD" and the fact that it is most certain that Apple chose the name Pod because of it's meaning in general. I don't think that we need to be so disregarding of the iPod's influence into podcasting it is in many ways almost as important as RSS itself in the proliferation of the medium, however I feel we also need to stress to readers the concept of portable on demand content as it is really the heart of what makes time shifted media like podcasting unique. both key factors of the origin of the name are honest and true to readers but I'm not gonna edit this article now as it has been untouched for long enough to see what others have to say. any thoughts? Testerer 04:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

People keep attributing "portable on-demand" to podcasting, but nobody seems to be able to show that this term was related to audio-over-RSS before it was associated with the iPod. Yes, there was a company called PODS in 1998, and no, this company did not have anything whatsoever with podcasting. Yes, there was some guitar preprocessor called a POD, no, nobody has ever shown that it had anything to do with podcasting. If you look at history of podcasting you can see that the very first audio-over-RSS client, iPodder, was a script designed to transfer audio from an RSS feed into an iPod. There is nothing at all linking POD as an acronym to the original etymology of podcasting. However I don't mind making note of the fact that apparently many people want to believe that it stands for "portable on-demand". I say this not out of any love for the iPod but as someone who does not want to see Wikipedia stuffed with wishful thinking folk etymologies. The Crow 02:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


You do raise a few valid concerns in that the PODS and Pod guitar product aren't related to podcasting. However how can you define podcasting by looking at iPodder (an aggregator)and related scripts that would move a downloaded file to an ipod. Your claim ""pod" refers to the Apple iPod, for which the first podcasting scripts were developed " is simply untrue. When Winer included "truckin'" in the RSS feed for his blog and news readers all over the world were updated with this audio enclosure[1] essentially the first podcast was syndicated. It seems you would define podcasting all the way down to transferring the content over to a portable media device automatically. While this is one nifty capability of software like iPodder and iTunes, it is not descriptive of RSS or Podcasting itself. I would say that most people do not choose to have podcasts automatically downloaded and then automatically loaded on to their device as a matter of daily use. I would almost move to have the etymology debate and subsection moved to the History of Podcasting article entirely as the root of the term doesn't really matter when describing mechanics itself.

I would also challenge that the apple iPod had nothing to do with Podcasting either, save for the fact that some scripts were written to make beta aggregators automatically transfer the files over to a device, the most common being the ipod. I do think it is important to explain this automation feature however it alone doesn't define podcasting nor justify using end user scripts written defining the web syndication of media process that really is podcasting. I'll try to edit this article more but I do have to say thanks for the discussion, more please, seriously, crafting a good, the best article is really what matters. The history of podcasting article is rather a mess so perhaps this constant battle could be moved there as well. ;) Testerer 17:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you're confusing "defining podcasting" with "describing the etymology of the word podcasting." Certain people seem desperate to censor the latter in order to retain the purity of the former, which I think really is a mistake. The word "podcasting" had to come from somewhere. The earliest appearances of "pod" with regard to audio syndication appear specifically in reference to the iPod. Other candidates do not appear until much later. This doesn't mean podcasting is defined by the iPod, nor that iPod was the first storage medium, nor the only one, nor the best one. It simply means that podcasting got its name from early popular association with portable devices, the most common and widely-recognized being the iPod, evidenced by the fact that early aggregation scripts were for the iPod. I agree it is something of an unimportant dispute, except that certain anti-fanboys keep inserting this "portable on-demand" urban legend into the article. Thus in order to avoid misinformation, we have to counter it with good information. The Crow 13:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what "aggregation scripts" were written for the ipod? Don't news readers (software not hardware) aggregate the content? I'm not really a fan of the "fanboy" style name calling either. How can you delete the portable on demand describing the process clause and still focus on the iPod being so influential. I'll admit that as much, but all iPods are portable. If you think podcasting is broadcasting to an ipod (etc..) then you'd pretty much have to agree that it is by the very nature of time shifted media, inherently portable. Thoughts? I'll not edit the article until we can continue the discussion. Thx. Testerer 01:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

But that had nothing to do with the choice of the name 'podcasting.' Sure, many media players are portable, and I guess you could make a case for 'on demand', although unless you've got integrated wireless in your media player that's not entirely accurate. But that does not mean that the 'pod' in 'podcast' was meant to stand for Portable On Demand. If you can prove it does, please do provide a source.
As for your question about scripts: a playlist magazine article from January 2005 (and this has many other sources, of course) says "The second piece of the podcast puzzle is getting the files to your portable player. Former MTV VJ Adam Curry gets credit for pioneering podcasting. According to ipodder.org, Curry wrote the first AppleScript that uses RSS feeds to download and automatically transfer audio files to an iPod. He then put the code out into the community so others could make improvements where they saw fit." [1] So yes, according to that source, the first podcasting script worked specifically with the iPod. Which would make the "Portable On Demand" etymology kind of counter-intuitive, so much so that Curry et al would have gone out of their way to explain the real meaning of the name. In which case, there would be many, many sources for it dating back to 2004 or early 05. -- Vary | Talk 16:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the pod in podcast stands for portable on demand. I'll also note that there is no reference listed for the iPod being the pod in podcast either. It just kinda makes sense right? I take issue with the notion that local scripts that move a podcast over to a portable device automatically after downloading is really an albeit important, however not defining moment in podcasting. It completed the process, if that was the end result the user was trying to reach. Podcasting is the syndication of media through RSS, ATOM etc... it used the current blog feeds[2] to start experimenting with new media.

You can't really claim that local scripts that move content around are really the bulk of podcasting mechanics right? We can't all ignore the fact that a pod in nature is a container also 'a streamlined enclosure, housing, or detachable container of some kind'[3]. Pod, before the iPod and Podcasting was also a known acronym for "portable on demand". You mean something that is a 'streamlined container of some kind that is also "portable on demand" doesn't sound like the world's best selling mp3 player? It is obvious as to why Apple picked the word pod itself, because people already associated similar concepts with this word. There has been many references to establish all of this, check the logs.

It is understandable that this be such a sullied point when looking at the disaster that is the History of Podcasting article. Podcasting technology was launched and well titled due to the ubiquitousness of the iPod, in fact, before it was really named the a program(s) was written to subscribe and automatically download podcasts when their feeds are updated. Curry came along and figured out how to write a script that would download and transfer this show to an Apple iPod. It all happened faster than it took to come up with a fitting name and Podcasting has stuck. I wouldn't change that at all but I would also think that this article, without needing to over articulate or story tell should reflect a bigger picture of podcasting other than narrowly defining the mechanics and legitimizing etymology. As always I appreciate the discussion and will of course refrain from editing this issue until we all may discuss things further Thanks. Testerer 01:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You're not saying that 'pod' stands for portable on demand? Well, then what are you saying? And yes, I'm surprised that there wasn't a reference listed for the etymology already, because there are plenty dating back to 2004-2005, as I mentioned above. I've added one. Oxford University Press says it's a portmanteau. The OED is the definitive reference for the English language. When people say 'the dictionary,' that's the dictionary they mean. End of discussion. The acronym is a false etymology: it's entirely appropriate that it be included in the article, but it's important that it be listed as such. -- Vary | Talk 18:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Testerer, you're confused here. As wikipedia editors, if we're talking about the word podcasting itself, our job is to describe how that term originated. As in originally, first. It is not appropriate for us to critique whether that word history agrees with what podcasting really "is". Anyway, the acronym "POD" falls apart for 2 reasons. First, "POD" isn't an acronym for "portable on demand" except in hindsight. The original acronym was "Portable On Demand Storage", or PODS. You can't just chop off a word and pretend as if were the same thing. The company certainly wouldn't treat their trademark that way. Second, as mentioned above, "portable on demand" is not a good explanation of podcasting anyway. Once you've gone portable... loaded the content into the mp3 player... you're no longer "on-demand". You can't get new content unless you've got some sort of internet-connected mp3 player, which generally isn't the case. Unless you can come up with an earlier source for "portable on-demand-casting" than for the iPod origin, we really have no valid reason to talk about the backronym at all, except to note that it is a popular urban legend. That's the bottom line - verifiability. The Crow 22:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

List of featured Podcasts?

I believe that there should be a list of Podcasts that are featured on Wikipedia, any oppinions?--Wiggstar69 12:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in the WikiProject Podcasting that is still in new development. There are several lists of podcasts within wikipedia here is one example. Testerer 17:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)\


Itunes instructionals, disinformation and Juice

People keep adding their podcast related trademark or feel the need to list every podcast aggregator available. Some feel that giving advice on how to manage podcasts and advice on how to make full use of itunes make this a good article. I don't understand why straying from the subject itself is such a trap for so many. It is not the simplest concept to explain and the convolution that this article seems to be constantly entangled with is frustrating and must be equally frustrating for readers. We've all argued about the etymology of the name for too long, it means so little it might as well be lumped in with the history of podcasting itself, an article which is a mess but frankly informative overall if you don't take it too seriously. This article doesn't need to be confusing or a "how-to" guide, a list of podcast related software or links to a podcast directory. It simply needs to inform readers about the meaning and simple mechanics of podcasting. Simply using blog feeds to syndicate media files. Yet every few months I come back to this article and someone has a huge paragraph like this

Podcasting is becoming increasingly popular in education. Podcasts enable students and teachers to share information with anyone at anytime. An absent student can download the podcast of the recorded lesson. It can be a tool for teachers or administrators to communicate curriculum, assignments and other information with parents and the community. Teachers can record book discussions, vocabulary or foreign language lessons, international pen pal letters, music performance, interviews, and debates. Podcasting can be a publishing tool for student oral presentations. Video podcasts can be used in all these ways as well.

Really? Are we taking a bit too much creative liberty here or is it just me? How about this?

iTunes offers the ability to create "Smart Playlists" which can be used to control which podcasts are in the playlist using multiple criteria such as date, number of times listened, type, etc. It is also possible to set up iTunes so that only certain playlists will be synced with the iPod. By using a combination of the two techniques it is possible to control exactly which music and/or podcasts will be transferred to the iPod. The illustration to the right shows one such "Smart playlist" which ensures that only the latest unlistened podcasts will be in the smart playlist. Any podcast which is more that two weeks old is not included, nor is any podcast that the iPod user has already listened to. This smart playlist is synced with the iPod every time the iPod is plugged into the PC, ensuring that the user does not have to listen to the same show more than once. Once a podcast has been listened to, it will be removed from this list as soon as the iPod is synced with the PC. There are many criteria which can control what goes in a smart playlist, such as "name," "artist," "category," "grouping," "kind," "last played," "play count," "rating," "last skipped," and "playlist" and these can be combined with functions such as "equals," "is greater than," "is less than," "contains," "is true," "is false," "is," "is not," "does not contain," "starts with," "ends with," "is in the range," "is before," and "is after". As a result, it is possible to control exactly which podcasts are transferred to the iPod.

simply astonished at this one. Do we really want this article to be full of original research and disinformation like this:

Podcast listeners can listen in one of two ways: through a specialized hardware device called an MP3 player or on a computer using media player software.

This is not true! It is unreferenced because it isn't true and the person who wrote it was did not show due diligence in being the best wiki editor. Specialized hardware device called an mp3 player? How about my cell phone? Stop it with the unrelated subtopics that muck up this aritcle please, I implore you to help readers by keeping this article neat, referenced and free of unrelated content.

I'm not totally happy with the etymology text as it reads, but I think it is almost good enough and I think it should stick because it's honest and related. Thanks for those who discuss as they edit. Testerer 04:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Getting rid of the trivia section

I think this would be a good way to eliminate the trivia section (at least part of it). The Mugglecast has no source or anything to do with it, and the Adam curry thing should be put under controversy. For the other parts, I propose to use a section called 'Legal use of the term" or "legal use(s)" My example is here at User:Laaabaseball/sandbox/2 Laaabaseball 09:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Please add the Podcasting Lingo

Here is the link to the podcasting lingo: http://www.lingospace.com/podcast/

History has ITUNES incorrectly referenced

"...and Kevin Marks demonstrated a script to download RSS enclosures and pass them to iTunes for transfer to an iPod. Curry and Marks discussed collaborating. After the conference, Curry offered his blog readers an RSStoiPod script that moved mp3 files from Userland Radio to iTunes, and encouraged other developers to build on the idea."

This was pre-iTunes

No it wasn't. It was before iTunes had podcatching built-in, but that's the point.

OK, how is this for removing links

I have changed my criteria for adding a link here. I don't think we should allow links to a Podcast search engine, because there seem to be about two zillion of those and we'll quickly find ourselves fighting link rot. What I think we should allow is a link to a list of podcast search engines. A link to a podcast search site can very well be added here for commercial gain; a list of podcast search sites is a list that helps build up the podcast community. If we get too many links to lists of podcast search sites, we can use the Google link:www.listoflistofpodcasts.foo score to weed out the non-notable ones. Do other users here feel this is a reasonable compromise between the need to have at least one link, but have as few links as possible? Samboy 17:35, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

As for Podcast players, in order to stop people from listing their commercial player here, I have made the list of players a list of open source players. People willing to give something away to the community are helping build up the community; others who have a more commercial interest, IMHO, should not have their player listed here. Again, it's to avoid linkrot and making this page have too many links to be useful to a Podcast newbie. Samboy 17:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Open source stuff is definitely worthy of mention, but I don't think open source players deserve any more mention than commercial players just because they release source to the community. Don't turn this into an anti-commercial situation. Mrsteveman1 (talk) 20:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

A webPod a virtual iPod

To listen to podcasts you can use a webPod. It's a virtual iPod, all is online no software to download, the list of podcasts is included by Webservice. The player is standalone. And if you want the player in your website, only add some lines of HTML code, it's free! Do you think I can add a link in this page and where? (because it's a new way to enjoy podcasting). http://www.mirpod.com

Podcast receiver topic

Isnt it the same as a podcatcher or an aggregator (as mentioned inthe article above?) if it is the same, then they both references should have the same title!

iPodder script / ipodder.org Dates

Says the entry: "A month later, in October of 2003 at the first Bloggercon weblogger conference held at Harvard, Harold Gilchrist and Kevin Marks demonstrated a script to download RSS enclosures and pass them to iTunes for transfer to an iPod[8]. Following the conference, Curry offered his blog readers a RSStoiPod script that would do the same. He assigned an open source license to the script (which he called 'iPodder'), and published it online at ipodder.org; encouraging other developers to build on the idea."

This makes it sound like Adam Curry released his iPodder script on ipodder.org in 2003, but note that ipodder.org did not exist until September 2004:

Domain Name:IPODDER.ORG Created On:04-Sep-2004 22:58:44 UTC


Do we need 50 links to Adam Curry sites?

Do we really need this many links to sites run by Adam Curry. I know he had a lot to do with the popularity of podcasts but really...

Comparison with other audio distribution methods

The graph below was out of place in the "Name" section, so I've moved it here. I don't see a place for it unless someone wants to write a section headed something like the header above. I think the "some believe" sentence (which required the 'citeneeded' tag) is unnecessary; the current "although..." sentence in the name section seems to be enough. -- bstepno 20 June 2006

In fact, some believe that more people listen to podcasts on personal computers more often than on portable devices [citation needed]. However, the NAB cites a Paragon Media Strategies survey in their August 22, 2005 edition of Radio Rave that shows that 51% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 64 still listed radio as their primary source for listening to music. Music downloads — the closest to podcasting on the survey only received a 3% response[2].

podcastlogo

Some fellows in Germany created a free podcast logo licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license, since the official Apple logo is copyrighted and may not be used on podcast sites. Check it out at http://www.podcastlogo.com/

anon comment

Just an idea, maybe the Podcast wasn't named as a squashing together of iPod and Broadcast. Maybe it is so called because episodes of said broadcasts are distributed in "pods" as their own seperate entities

Friends come? thanks

enter text? test, sorry

dfdf767df —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.217.144.231 (talk) 14:16, August 25, 2007 (UTC)