Talk:Podcast/Archive 2

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Cited in Supreme Court brief

Yay! Cheers for Wikipedi. This article was cited in a Supreme Court Amici Curiae brief. (The Grokster case) --Lotsofissues 13:07, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Definition and linkspam

I tried to rework the definition, since I felt it was too vague and hard to understand. I'm not 100% satisfied with what I've got; it feels too wordy. I'd also like to include some reference to *how* people subscribe to podcasts.

How about "Podcasting is multimedia blogging"? That's what I found it to be, and I wish the wikipedia article told me right away.

Also, I deleted some linkspam, and noticed the number of links to podcasting tutorials and such is growing. I favor deleting those along with the podcast directories and such, since they don't help to explain what podcasting is, but what do you all think?

I agree WRT linkspam. To be fair, the links should stay as on-point as possible, so basically delete almost all of the crazy links. —BenFrantzDale 20:15, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Uh, so I did a couple of edits

...and ended up changing half the page. I think this better conveys what podcasting is and how it works. I've seen this article referenced a number of times online, so I tried to write it for a person who doesn't know much about blogging or RSS or MP3s and such. --Screetchy cello 23:18, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

I say that a podcaster is NOT one who posts downloadable MP3 files on the web. I say that a podcaster is someone who owns a device capable of receiving audio material downloads, and they are tired of commercially sponsored broadcast crap & looking for alternative listening material. They surf the web for new sources of this material. Once found, they place a hook in these locations to allow future material to be reeled into their listening devices. The casting activity has less relation to the process of posting files, and more relation to search, find, retreive process. --RRLedford@gmail.com

But that isn't how the term is used. It's like saying that broadcasting is actually radio listening. Your describing the wrong end of the transaction. "podcasting" is the side of the transaction that makes the MP3 files conveniently available, NOT the activity on the listeners side. --Clifdavis 12:48, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That is correct - the previous poster has it backwards. Podcasting is creating files and making them available for downloading/RSS. --DavidWBrooks 12:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Reverted edits by anon editors

I wanted to explain why I reverted the last couple of changes, especially to the anon user 65.30.41.166. Wikipedia isn't a linkfarm, but an encyclopedia. If people want to know how to do podcasting, they can google for that and get much better results. So while that site might be helpful, it doesn't belong in this particular article. Links should help explain what podcasting is, not where to get them or how to do it. Thanks.

Also, I kind of liked the History section, and was sad to see it blanked. It's a little shaggy, but I thought it was informative. So I put it back. --Screetchy cello 22:00, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with your judgement of my link. Our Article on 'How to Explain Podcasting to the Flashing 12' is still one of the best non-technical explanations of podcasting out there. How to Explain...

Removing that link is a detriment to the viewers of this site. My site is completly commercial free. Yes I have a directory and How to's. But I also have one of the best explanations for the non-techies on the web for Podcasting.

So I am adding a link just to the Flashing 12 Article. --Rob @ Podcast411

I disagree with your judgement of WP guidelines. From the Wikipedia:External Links page, "Adding links to one's own page is strongly discouraged." Furthermore, the WP article is a better explaination that this link, so the link is unnecessary. --Adm58 00:08, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

It's the RSS

It's become the consensus among podcasters that the term "podcasting" applies only to audio content delivered automatically through the RSS protocol. Other online audio delivered through standard web pages do not fit this term. Just thought I'd put that up so everybody's clear on it. --Adm58 00:22, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

The key part is automated download, and non-computer playback. RSS is a means to this end, but other ways are possible too. --Kevin Marks 07:32, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Radio stations section

This is becoming sort of a linkfarm and it isn't very relevant information. I think I might try to broaden it to mention some commercial uses of podcasting, but I don't believe we need to include a bunch of external links. Any thoughts? --Adm58 18:08, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Curious about what should (and should not) get included.

Sorry for (initially) jumping in and editing this page before reading the discussion. I won't let it happen again.

Anyway, I'm just curious why the additional content I added about Podcasting being publicised by more mainstream media following the pope's death was removed. O.K. Presumably most of the people reading this listen to at least one podcast on a regular basis, but many people I know (including some seriously tech-savvy ones) didn't know about podcasting until it was mentioned in the news. Only time will tell, but I can't help wondering if some podcast content (such as the one I mentioned) will eventually become as historically significant as the recording made when the Hindenberg went down. --RichardJFoster 13:14, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Obviously it's a judgement call - all of wikipedia is a judgement call! - but in a fast-developing area like podcasting, there are new/expanded mentions in the media almost every week. Articles can't be an exhaustive history of every development in a field or they would become so massive that nobody could read them. If you look up higher in this Talk area, you'll see a whole bunch of media mentions that were removed a while back - back when new "what is podcasting" articles cropped up all the time. --DavidWBrooks 13:44, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Understood. I agree that it is not appropriate to mention every new reference in the news. I personally considered the one I added appropriate because it was (to the best of my knowledge) the first "historically significant" (but not computer related) event captured in a podcast. Of course if anyone else knows otherwise, that event would/should take priority.

Argh! it appears that bug is back where I get logged out without warning. :-( Updated signature manually --RichardJFoster 13:58, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was the one who removed it because I felt the article was getting sidetracked with too much niche information. As a general rule, we want to avoid specific mentions of podcasts and we want to avoid too many external links. The article should be as straightforward and as self-contained as possible. Please continue to post any comments and questions on the talk page, and I welcome questions on my own talk page as well. --Adm58 15:07, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I agree that niche information may not add much to the article, and there is certainly no guarantee that the podcasts of John Paul II's funeral and the election of Benedict XVI will become historically significant. Perhaps the information should be added back in only when and if they do. --RichardJFoster 15:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

List of Podcasts

Do we break off some of the (former) external links into a new List of Podcasts article? --Mydotnet 13:40, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'd vote no, because that list would change so much that we'd always be behind. Plus, there are plenty of podcast directories on the Web. --DavidWBrooks 15:18, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Deleted material

I have reverted deleted material (thus deleting the comment from the person who deleted it, alas!) since material should never be deleted from Talk pages unless it is offensive/illegal. I will archive part of this page, to shorten it. --DavidWBrooks 10:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Listing Podcasting sites

Please do not add links to individual podcasts, podcast software, podcast cons or to podcast directories (including Podcast Alley). Links should only be here if they help explain *what* podcasting is.

Why is this? What about listing the iPodder.org directory? --Anonymous

Because linking to a site containing podcasts is NPOV- we could never get a fair representation, and even if we could, it is an open question whether that would be encyclopedic. See too up in the discussions: I also wonder why iPodder.org gets a link when it clearly has a corporation profiting behind it. --MasterMaq 07:37, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC). Does that sound more than a little POV now, adding Ipodder? Hope that answers your questions. --maru 15:26, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Disgreement with time-shifted attribute

In the article podcasts are described as time-shifted. This seems rather incorrect.

Unlike time-shifted material, podcasts cannot be listened to while the content is produced, which makes podcasts more akin to recordings then to time-shifted content.

The RSS and auto-sync provide a new, unique way to publish audible digital content. The combination of all three rightfully warrants a new name for what would typically be referred to as a recording.

Referring to podcasts as time-shifted seems like an attempt to increase the “coolness” factor of the term. --Anonymous

No; entirely correct- podcasting is essentially, fundamentally, asynchronous- timeshifted in other words. The recipient chooses when to listen, not the sender. And your point about production does not hold- just about everything on TV cannot be watched when being produced, and are, like podcasting, sent and with vcrs, received asynchronously/timeshifted, so why then you not cavil about the term's application to TV and VCR's and such, which originated the very term? --maru 14:20, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

"..just about everything on TV cannot be watched when being produced..." True, which is why TV shows aren't hardly ever referred to as "time-shifted," but rather "recorded." In the old days when live TV's (more often live radio's) signal was purposefully thirty seconds or so behind the actual event (censor catch), it was referred to it as "delayed" broadcast, i.e., time-shifted. The specific distinction between 'time-shifted' vs. 'recorded' does seem to be related to Can You Tap In During The Production (even with a lag), and in that respect, podcasts appear to be recorded rather than time-shifted. Otherwise, it is a Webcast. --Another anonymous :::00:25, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Winer

Who or what is Winer? The word seems to be used without introduction.

Ooops: somebody (maybe me) got overly enthusiastic in past editing. It's fixed now. - DavidWBrooks 16:50, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Radio stations

The portion of the article about U.S. radio stations podcasting some of their broadcasts has been condensed because the list was getting so long - and it's no longer notable when a US station does it. Aside from what appears (unless somebody corrects us) to be the first such radio podcast, which is listed, only really unusual situations such as KYOU (which broadcasts podcasts, instead of the other way around) deserve to be listed separately any more, IMHO. --DavidWBrooks 14:46, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

This section is kind of a mess; we need to condense it into some kind of logical summary. It's a jumbled linkfarm type thing at the moment. Please take a crack at it if anyone is willing. --Adm58 14:50, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

It is a link farm, and I don't think it should be that way. I think that section should be more of a "informational" section. Like stating that Rush is planning on turning his radio show into a podcast... but not providing a link to downloading it. Because if we start doing that (as it sort of is right now), then why not have a list of pod casts and podcast software listed too? --Noah 19:51, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

I tried trimming, combining a bit. --DavidWBrooks 21:17, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Why is this section even in this article? Total waste of space IMHO --podCast411 20:02, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not very fond of it either but I don't think people would react kindly if I just deleted it.  :) Adm58 00:48, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

I just think the whole addition of Radio Stations takes away from Podcasting in general - I am going to delete it. --podCast411 20:02, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

A little over-enthusiastic, I think - I undeleted it, then did more trimming. Perhaps the time has come to collapse it all into a couple of paragraphs without separate country mentions. - DavidWBrooks 18:46, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I was being agressive. I just do not believe the whole issue of Radio Stations has any place on this page any more then specific podcasts do. As a matter of fact as a podcaster I am offended by them. Podcasting was started by people looking for something other than radio now that radio stations are taking pre-packaged shows and converting them to an MP3 and then having an RSS link to them does not make them true podcasts. Again I am going to delete that section. I see no value in it and it only muddies the waters for those that come to this page. --podCast411 15:15, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

In it's current version, I agree with podCast411. The information presented is mostly irrelevant. I'd be more interested in seeing a section on how podcasting has influenced radio; Adam Curry's show for example. It is my opinion that this section stay deleted. Adm58 22:15, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

'Software' section removed?

Just thought I'd point out that Australian radio station Triple J has a couple of links to this page on their podcast page at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/listen/podcast.htm . However one of the links points to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting#Software , a section that doesn't exist at the moment.

Not being a frequent editor of this page, I thought I might leave it to someone more involved with this article to restore the 'Software' section if they see fit? -- Chuq 07:02, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

• • Some people think that listing software used for podcasts is a POV thing, and can't be fair to everyone. I don't think there are "that" many podcast software programs out there, so we could include them "all". My vote is to re-add the various podcasting softwares that are out there. Noah 08:15, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

It's not just that it's NPOV, it's that it is non-encyclopedia-ic. (I never know how to spell that word). Wikipedia isn't a how-to guide or a Web-link guide - that's why we don't, say, list every publisher who prints a version of an out-of-copyright book in an article about that book, or list every manufacturer of ski equipment rented at a particular ski area, or list every interstate leading into Chicago in that city's article, etc. It's incredibly easy for people interested in finding pod software to Google it; wikipedia isn't supposed to be a search replacement. As for the site with the wrong link, they need to update their links more often. - DavidWBrooks 13:35, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

To resolve this problem on the News aggregator page, I just made a separate List of news aggregators page. It cut down on spam on the News aggregator page entirely and while it may not be entirely NPoV or encyclopedic, it isn't useless to have that list of programs. —BenFrantzDale 19:39, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! - DavidWBrooks 20:58, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

We should do the same for this section. Add a "see also" link to the List of Podcasts.. and let people add stuff to that page instead of this page. There could even be a "radio broadcast" section. Noah 11:59, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Other uses

I removed this because it is inaccurate and it repeats information from another page. The info is wrong because KFI doesn't distribute podcasts, Leo is permitted to do that by the station on his own time and expense. If we insist on having this tangent niche info in the article, can we use some that is accurate? Adm58 17:43, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, excellent - an editor with knowledge that can be used to improve an article, instead of just throwing stuff out. I look forward to seeing it incorporated it in the story. Personally, while it's tangential I don't think it's irrelevant, at least not at this point. In six months or a year, when most radio stations automatically podcast programs, then it probably will be. - DavidWBrooks 18:25, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Now there seem to be two entries claiming to be "first" broadcast radio podcasts. I noticed when I added a third early starter (KOMO). I miss having some reference to the early NPR syndicated program podcasts, including "On the Media" (WNYC) and "Morning Stories" (WGBH), but I see from earlier discussion there's some reorganization of station links in process. Adoption by a national network like the BBC also seems significant. Limbaugh's reference should say why it's there; otherwise just another program. BobStepno 01:26, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

I'm adding a NPOV banner as I think compared to older archives http://web.archive.org/web/20041130005814/ this article shows bias and factual innaccuracy - I'm not sure me just editing it would work; since my changes would get reverted. I'm an early podcaster and I don't recognise the facts and all the links disappearing, apart from the 2 one of which is a commercial entity - there seems to be a bias to radio stations and commercial entities. And Dave Winer getting edited out completely? What's with that?

iPodder is not the only directory site - you've got to mention PodCastAlley and the rest, or none. And don't link to Apple - they were nothing to do with the direction or invention of podcasting until very recently (iTunes 4.9). timbearcub

Ah I can see Dave Winer's been added back in now - but will it stay? I still stick by my general point about links - iPodder is not an independent site as it's run by Adam Curry, and not everyone uses it (?) - either add all the directories, or none...and I think some of the useful/historical links could come back? It seems very one-sided...I can see you've decided to take the links out for cleanness, but the current article gives the impression that podcasting is just Adam Curry and Apple?timbearcub

A very small point, timbearcub - if you sign with ~~~~ (four tildes, not just three) it will put the date and time of your post, which makes it easier on Talk pages to keep track of who said what when. Currently, a person following the Talk link from the NPOV bug wouldn't know whether your above comment was made yesterday and is still relevant, or two months ago and has been superceded by events.

Having said that, I think the remove-the-ipodder-link contingent has made a good case. - DavidWBrooks 20:44, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I hope the mentions of Winer, Lydon, Hammersley and Curry stay put and that people don't waste time on "podfather" wars. Winer and Hammersley apparently have a long-standing unharmonious relationship, and I suspect partisans of one or the other have been deleting mention of whichever guy they think is a dork. And now Winer and Curry appear to have split over Curry's podcast-related commercial ventures. When it comes to podcasting, Winer deserves credit for adding the enclosure element to his flavor of RSS and Userland Radio, encouraging Curry's early experiments with it, then setting up a feed for Lydon, which helped inspire Curry's early Applescripts to get MP3s into his iPod. This is well documented in major newspaper and magazine articles, as well as the trail of blog posts and podcasts still online. Meanwhile Hammersley really did put the word "podcasting" in circulation. I think Winer and Curry talked about it in one of their early "Trade Secrets" podcasts last year. BobStepno 01:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks David - and the entry is looking a lot fairer now - noting the enmity and some of the issues around that; rather than just naming one person, it's now naming them all. Much better. The problem with innovations like this is that they are part incremental; part liguistics and marketing, and are collaborative - but the media likes a shorthand and just wants one person for their snappy sound bytes! timbearcub 15:04, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Downes Contribution

I have (again) added the Stephen Downes contribution of Ed Radio. This application clearly predated other inventions of the concepts, was the first to use RSS explicitly for the aggregation and distribution of MP3. This is important, because it makes it clear that the later Winer-Curry invention was restricted to the uploading of aggregated RSS files to iPods, and not the wider innovation of using RSS to aggregate and distribute RSS feeds. It may or may not have been an influence on subsequent developments (it is certainly not referenced). Other people have wailed a lot about being expunged from history; I see no reason why I should do so silently.-- Stephen Downes

More a name than an invention

This talk of Podcasting as something new strikes me as odd. Only the name is really new. For example the company audible.com has been selling subscriptions to audio (NPR and audio books mostly) to be downloaded into portable music players for many years prior to the dates in any of the proposed histories.

Internet Talk Radio (1993) was multicast, but then also put up for regular ftp download. People didn't have music players, and CD burners cost $3,000 so nobody put these things into personal players.

In fact, distinguishing podcasting from streaming goes backwards. Producing audio into a file for later download was what came first, and was too slow on the old internet. It was because this took too long to give you the first audio that streaming audio was developed, first on the mbone, later in private streams, which led to the success of the Real Audio company and others.

• No, streaming is a technological dead end, applying a telephony mindset to a data transfer problem. If you transfer files in sequential order you can play them from the beginning if you have sufficient bandwidth; if not you wait. With streaming you need sufficient bandwidth, or you get a garbled result.Kevin Marks

Subscribing to audio files for automatic download goes even further back, however. There are many USENET newsgroups devoted to binaries, including audio files, which date back to the 80s. Of course, many of the contributions there were copyright violations.

Unlike RSS "subscriptions" which kludge subscription through polling, USENET (and mailing lists) offered true subscription. You subscribed to a group and items were sent to your machine when they were generated, not when you went to ask for something new.

Again, nobody had digital music players in those days so you might not identify it as identical to the way people are defining podcasting, but the concept of subscribing to audio files over the internet with automatic delivery goes back a long, long time before what is now getting called podcasting.

a little bit of clarity

I realise that this page is currently being contested, but can i just give my opinion as someone who is not involved in the editing of this page. I came here to find out more about podcasting, and i expected the article to mention how podcasts can be made, that means a section on software. I see from above that the software section was removed, please put it back in cause wikipedia is the first place i look for an answer, and this page didnt answer it. The bellman 02:10, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a how-to guide, if that's what you're looking for. There are tons of such guides on the Web, though - a quick Google will find scads. - DavidWBrooks 12:57, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree about not turning an encyclopedia into a how-to manual, but I think The Bellman's point on readers' needs is a good one. Since we are documenting the history of this technology (or meme or whatever it is), documenting how it *spread* seems appropriate. I don't have time to determine which "how-to" came first, but the one linked below was one of the first detailed ones I bookmarked. So, inspired by David, I'll add this to the end of the history section. Perhaps it belongs elsewhere. Do with it as you Wikili see fit:

By October, 2004, detailed "how-to podcast" articles (early example) had begun to appear online. By mid-June, 2005, a Google search for "'how to' +podcast" returned 1,260,000 hits. BobStepno 21:16, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, David... Didn't see your earlier note about Google search strings. Other Uses fix looks OK too, with station names moved to their own page.BobStepno 04:15, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NPOV note

Hey timbearcub, does your above note about the article being better now mean you'd agree to remove the NPOV tag? - DavidWBrooks 20:54, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of Podcasts

Per a difficult VfD decision, the article "List of Podcasts" was deleted. That decision may have implications for this page. Please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of Podcasts for a record of the discussion.

• Agree with the decision taken by Rossami. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

usually at no cost

The article says Podcasts are usually at no cost. Are there any chargeable Podcasts, yet? Andy Mabbett 30 June 2005 09:05 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it does seem like most of the major talk radio personalities (Rush Limbaugh, Phil Hendrie, Sean Hannity) are trying to charge for their podcasts. Here is an article on Rush Limbaugh's website right now explaining why he "has to" charge people, and "can't" be in iTunes. -- Colin Hill ⁄ talk ▪ June 30, 2005 12:41 (UTC)

What an idiot. But "trying to charge" !="charging"; in fact, he says charging isn't possible, so I'm going to remove that wording from the article. Andy Mabbett 30 June 2005 13:34 (UTC)

Well, I don't really mind either way, but he's selling 400,000 hours a week, and I assume his show is a couple hours a day, 5 days a week. That's 40,000 people paying him USD$50 a year. I'd say a $200,000/yr profit qualifies as "charging". I think he meant that iTunes makes it impossible for him to charge, and since he's in it for the cash, he won't use iTunes. And even if he had claimed podcasts couldn't be sold, he also called free podcasters "ego-driven" and said 99% of it isn't worth anything. That's not very NPOV, and I don't think his opinions belong in Wikipedia articles. -- Colin Hill ⁄ talk ▪ July 1, 2005 04:58 (UTC)

What an immense loss. ;) Joe D (t) 30 June 2005 12:47 (UTC)

Ha, I know, but Phil Hendrie is pretty funny. ; ) And Rush Limbaugh does claim to serve over 400,000 hours of content a week. So I guess someone is paying for that stuff, too. -- Colin Hill ⁄ talk ▪ June 30, 2005 12:54 (UTC)

I don't call Rush Limbaugh "content". - Ta bu shi da yu 4 July 2005 02:33 (UTC)

And that's as much not NPOV as Limbaugh's comments on free podcasters. Michael Moore, Green Day, et al don't post free MP3s or videos of their stuff online either. In fact last I checked Moore had also sold a companion book and "soundtrack" CD to his last film. It's all for profit, no matter whose ideology you fall in step with. I'm a Glenn Beck fan myself, and Limabugh's entry into the podcasting business is what ruined Beck's MP3s, that's why I mentioned him in the first place in the article. Mscudder 08:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Podcasting logo

File:Podcasting.png

Althought I find interesting someone creating a podcasting logo this clearly does not belong to this wikipedia article. If the original author wants to make some logos I suggest he to turn to one of the many open source podcatchers communities, they will gladly accept this offer. Then, when this turns into a real logo, we can put it back here.

I agree. This looks uncommon. So I remove it for now. Once it caught up, we can put it back. -- Taku July 3, 2005 12:26 (UTC)

time-shifting

I always thought that time-shifted content is presumed to have been previously broacast via a time-based medium such as TV or radio, such that a viewer records the incoming signal stream and may then view the recorded broadcast at a different time than originally intended. If this is not the case, then a newspaper would be a time-shifted format; but newspapers are not broadcast, nor do they cease to be viewable after some intended time frame. --Anonymous person Sun Jul 03 06:54:01 UTC 2005

Bit-Torrent speculation

I'm suspicious of anything that refers to "now" in an encyclopedia; time elements should be specific. Someone added this after the iTunes section; I don't think speculation belongs here, but I didn't want to delete it without discussion:

"The challenge faced now by podcasters is the increased exposure brought by iTunes' huge market of downloaders. The use of bittorrent enabled podcast clients would assist in solving this, but at present, iTunes does not support bittorrent. Adding bittorent to iTunes may prove beneficial to podcasters."

What is the challenge? Too much traffic? Too little bandwidth? Specifics would help. Adding free ice cream "may prove beneficial", too... but is anyone doing it? If developers are working on connections between iTunes and BitTorrent, the page certainly should report it and link to the source. Apologies for not logging in; I'm not at my usual computer. --Another anonymous person Sun Jul 03 06:54:01 UTC 2005

I agree that the paragraph looks very odd. Saying "doing this and that is good" sounds exactly like a personal essay. I think the problem is the way it is written. We can start from background story and end with the fact that iTunes does not support BitTorrent. Like (1) a number of publishers are paying a lot for bandwidth. (2) Some noticed BitTorrent can help reduce the bandwidth cost. (3) And so they want to see iTunes to support BitTorrent. Or something like this. -- Taku July 4, 2005 02:23 (UTC)

Radio Station Firsts

Why are U.K., Australian and Canadian radio station podcasts worth mentioning on the main page while the rest of the world is consigned to List of radio stations with podcasts? A brief mention of the fall 2004 early-adopters with a link to the list page is more appropriate. (The same information on the main page is now on the list page, except for one broken link to a missing endnote on "/Nerd.") If the list page is becoming too much of a link farm, since the list of non-professional podcasts was removed, replace both with a "Podcasting Firsts" page, and let "me first" nationalists, anon or not, identify their local broadcasters' or independent podcasters' documented claims to "first podcast" there. BobStepno 4 July 2005 19:11 (UTC)

They're here because they shouldn't be split. The list page isn't a list and either needs to be renamed or rewritten. This is a page about podcasting so it needs to describe "podcasting" not "podcasting as a few techies see it". Joe D (t) 4 July 2005 19:27 (UTC)

I disagree. There's no issue of "a few techies" here. This is a "history" section, but what started as a "radio podcast 'firsts'" list within it grew so much that someone moved it to a separate page. Unfortunately, its title doesn't reflect the dated, documented contents that were moved there. I'm not the Wikipedia expert you appear to be, JoeD -- can that other page be renamed 'Early Radio Podcasts' or "Radio Podcast 'Firsts'" so that the history section here doesn't resume acquiring "first British," "first North American," "first Spanish," "first Russian," ad infinitum? BobStepno 5 July 2005 16:55 (UTC)

P.S. If you're responsible for the British-Austrailian-Canadian radio history paragraph, please fix the footnote and link on "technology show /Nerd[8]." Note 8 isn't about it. BobStepno 5 July 2005 16:55 (UTC)

Sorry, I was being a bit arsey about this article yesterday because looking back at the history of the page it seems several people have come along and decided that half the article should be deleted, for no reason. The British-Australian-Canadian radio history paragraph needent be a British-Austrlia-Canadian paragraph, it should just deal with the main points of the history of podcasting with traditional broadcasters. When I came to work on it this article had nothing at all about traditional broadcasters, and what I wrote was simply what I could find with an hour looking through the sources cited. If there is already another article started on that (as the mistitled page seems to be), the material should not be deleted from the main page, rather there should be a summary section on the main page linking to the subarticle.

With regards to the "list of" article (which I'm not entirely sure is currently long enough to even warrant splitting into a new article rather than just a subsection, but I'm willing to leave split in anticipation of future expansion), the title should probabaly be something like "Podcasting and traditional broadcasters". I'll leave it open to discussion here for a day or two before moving. Joe D (t) 5 July 2005 17:35 (UTC)

P.S., the Wired article was my source for the CBC info. Joe D (t) 5 July 2005 17:40 (UTC)

Excellent, Joe D. I agree the "Podcasting and traditional broadcasters" title is more descriptive. I forgot to log in (again) when I added a couple of CBC links to that Wired ref, and clarified the U.S. early adopters a bit. I think KOMO is significant as a station podcasting frequent news updates, not just a single program. I avoided repeating details of the individual programs in L.A. and Boston, which are named on the "list" page. Bstepno 19:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

PodcastSPOTS

Though the concept is interesting (and alrarming!), PodcastSPOT's terms and conditions seem to suggest that they may not be a serious player. In effect, the user agreses not to receive any royalties. Andy Mabbett 5 July 2005 16:29 (UTC)

I thought the same after my first read, but after a second reading, it seems to me that it says you will get what you ask for, provided their ad inventory can sustain it and I assume that shouldn't be a problem with all the talk about the huge amount of podcast subscriptions.

Dictionary vs Encyclopedia

The reason for the change from portmanteau to "linguistically a blend, combining" was so that people don't need to jump all over the place trying to figure out what is being said. If we want a dictionary that's great but I thought this was an encyclopedia! Plus there was a spelling correction if you haden't noticed. Cheers. allr1 7 July 2005 21:24 (UTC)

My addition of "made-up word" to explain "portmanteau" better has been reverted so I won't try that again, but the above objection remains - almost nobody knows what "portmanteau" means. It's probably obvious from the context, but wikipedia needs to be accessible to non-native English speakers, and I wonder how many of them will get flummoxed by a word as unusual as, say, "flummoxed"? "Portmanteau" obviously has its fans, but it seems an unnecessarily complicated and pompous term in this case. - DavidWBrooks 8 July 2005 19:37 (UTC)

I agree with both that the use of "portmanteau" can sidetrack readers who come to this page to find out about podcasting, not about interesting words. I think the "linguistic blend" phrase is awkward too, so if my system doesn't knock me offline, I may delete it and move the "portmanteau" link to the word "combining." Bstepno 19:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh no! The portmanteau is back. Looks like we'll get rid of it when pigs fly... or when Pigsonthewing reconsiders his passionate portmanteau partisanship. Just saying "Podcast, from 'iPod' and 'broadcast'..." seems perfectly clear. Why should this page try to teach people an obscure word that has nothing to do with the subject of the page? Seems like a waste of bits to me. ~~

Because this is an enclopedia, and a portmanteau is what the word is. I believe there is a simplified English Wiki for people who do not want to use long words. Andy Mabbett 09:12, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The portmanteau article is still pointing out that portmanteau is not what the word is, but that "blend" is the correct term. Joe D (t) 09:18, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

That rticle says that a portmanteau is A portmanteau (plural: portmanteaux or portmanteaus) is a word that is formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words. In what way does that not apply to Podcasting? Andy Mabbett 21:15, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It says: "The term used in linguistics is blend". Your argument for using the word has been that it's the correct technical term. It's not, the technical term is "blend". Joe D (t) 18:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

It is a portmanteau, but "portmanteau" is pointlessly pompous and adds nothing to the article, making it look as if we want to show off a big word we just learned. - DavidWBrooks 21:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with David (and applaud his alliteration). Mark Twain said something like, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between 'lightning' and 'lightning-bug'". He did not say, "You must always call that insect 'Photuris Pennsylvanica of the family Lampyridae.'" I prefer "firefly" myself. (Hmm. Wouldn't that be a portmanteau of 'fire' and 'fly'? If so, should that be pointed out to the average reader who comes to the "firefly" page to find out what makes the pretty lights in the evening garden?) I notice the Wikipedia page no longer points out that its name, too, is a portmanteau. Bstepno 20:22, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

broacasting

To Steinsky - the reason the second BBC reference was cut from the broadcasting subsection is that the number of radio podcasts around the world is enormous; limiting them to one per country (presumably the first, or at least the first prominent one) seems the best way to keep this subsection in the main article to a reasonable size. The secondary BBC moves that you have re-inserted can be put on the podcasting by traditional broadcasters page. - DavidWBrooks 17:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, but the history of the United States didn't end with the declaration of independence and the history of the UK didn't end with the acts of union. I am trying to include in that section broadcasters which are especially well known in their countries and throughout the world. This is a history section, it should us the growth and change in podcasting over time, not just who got there first. BBC, ABC, CBC and NPR are the best known broadcasters in the English speaking world and are amoungst the biggest and best known in the world, so their uptake is an excellent indicator of the overall uptake. Ideally I'd like the section to also include a "podcast census" showing statistics for growth. Deleting this info is like writing a history of the US in which you say "At the declaration of independence the population was X million in Y colonies along the eastern coast of North America." and calling it a history of United States. Joe D (t) 18:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

P.S., the size of the subsection in the main article isn't anywhere near a problem, at one paragraph and a sentence. People seem to have been deleting so much, yet this article is tiny, and even for a summary that section is short.

I'd agree with you - EXCEPT that we have a link to a main article that can be expanded ad infinitum. So a history of the U.S. article that gave, say, one sentence about the early economy being dependent upon tobacco would be fine if it had a link to a fuller article about early economy. The concern here is that adding lots of radio podcasts will give an exaggerated sense of broadcasters' podcasts (say that three times fast) in the overall podcasting story - whereas it's still a pretty small part. - DavidWBrooks 19:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I just wrote a related note on the podcasting by traditional broadcasters discussion page. I think you're both right -- the point is to keep the paragraph here a summary (or highlights) of the longer page, and to keep the longer page to significant developments, not let it become a "directory" list. As the history develops, that page should acquire most of the detail. I think the current summary length is ok, but as the other page grows, this summary could lose some of its current details to better summarize whatever new material is on the longer page. For example, as the list of nations on the other page grows, this section could summarize how many countries or languages can be heard on broadcasters' podcasts, etc. Come to think of it, since we no longer have a directory page of NON-broadcast podcasts, maybe we can come up with a paragraph h ere that summarizes the great variety of people and topics that were involved in the first year of the phenomenon? Just a thought... My Wikipedia time quota is about up for this week. Bstepno 19:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Only mentioning the tobacco economy would be an acceptable summary of the History of the United States? If you look at United States#History you'll notice that since paragraphs are perfectly acceptable for a summary section, and that it doesn't concentrate on a single time. This article is nowhere near long enough for us to be worrying about this subsection growing too long. I accept the argument that any particular example we use may give the impression that those particular broadcasters are particularly big on podcasting, but that can easily be fixed with a qualifier along the lines of "As an example of how quickly broadcasters picked up on the format <well known broadcasters> began trials in <date>, but have yet to adopt the format accross the board." Joe D (t) 20:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Copyright and payment

What is the copyright position of users of podcasts and is payment made tor them? Lumos3 11:38, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Documenting spread of podcasting

Right before the "Adoption by traditional broadcasters" subsection, the "History" section could use a subsection/paragraph on the growth in popularity and variety of podcasts -- general descriptions and statistics, to avoid building another "directory."

I haven't had time to check old newspaper stories or search scripting.com's archives for progressive estimates of the number of podcasts (or to find the first time someone snarkily compared it to "Wayne's_World"), but maybe someone does. However, I did notice a series of Doc Searls posts documenting early spurts of growth in Google's awareness of the term, starting here: http://www.itgarage.com/node/462

"But now most of my radio listening is to what Adam Curry and others are starting to call podcasts. That last link [Google search for "podcasts"] currently brings up 24 results on Google. A year from now, it will pull up hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions." That was Sept. 28. Other Google hits and their dates in Doc's blog:

24 on Sept. 28 526 on Sept. 30 2,750 on Oct. 2 5,950 on Oct. 4 13,000 Oct 8 53,200 Oct. 13 109,000 Oct. 18

(By the way, the current number of hits on the word "podcasts" is approaching 11 million, so his "a year from now..." estimate was quite conservative.) On their own, those numbers don't really make a podcasting page entry, but I'm dumping them here in case they dovetail with stats someone else has on hand, or has time to dig up. Bstepno 15:08, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, after saying that, I found enough time to put together the start of a section called, at least for now, "Popularization," relying perhaps too heavily on those statistics and stories in two U.S. newspapers. Fortunately the stories in question have permalinks and are still available online. I'm sure the Guardian and BBC had early Podcasting stories, too, with plenty to add here. My intention wasn't to make this an archive of newspaper clips, but to start to fill in the gap between "Initial Development" and "Coping with Growth" without having only the traditional radio broadcasters in the middle. More hard stats from the podcast directories would help a lot, too. It's rough, but it's a start. Bstepno 01:24, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

New York Times mention

The Times didn't specifically cite this article, but made a half-joking suggestion that many people would turn to Wikipedia to find out what podcasting is. Here's what I put on Wikipedia:Press coverage:

• Heffernan, Virginia. "The Podcast as a New Podium". New York Times, July 22, 2005, p. E1. [1]

  "Admit it. You don't know what podcasts are. Your plan is to do that thing of half-reading tech articles and waiting in denial until it's scarily mandatory that you really understand it -for instance, you have to create your own podcast for some random reason in one hour - and then desperately turning to Wikipedia or a teenage relative for a last-minute explanation."

When I looked at this article, it seemed as if the last edit had exposed all the HTML tags, so I reverted. Fortunately that turns out to be something weird at my end, so I'll go revert myself now. JamesMLane 22:58, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

blogcasting?

It seems to me that "blogcasting" refers only to podcasts that are associated with blogs. As most podcasts are radio shows, not blogs, isn't it an oversimplification to say the two terms are synonymous? 204.0.197.190 16:00, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I was listening to a [Microsoft] podcast a long time a go. The host was almost straining to say Blogcasting instead of Podcasting. I suspect some people aren't too keen on associating themselves with the iPod. --Defragged 16:50, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Stoph added that the term blogcasting 'upsets many people'. I removed this because it is not self-evident and does not seem to make sense. Please feel free to add it again with additional explanation. ~ Aero Leviathan 17:42, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I was only editing someone else's comment. I was about to remove it completely but your solution is best. - Stoph 17:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

"podcast" redirect

Can we get a search for "podcast" to redirect to "Podcasting"? Thanks

It does. Or, perhaps, it does now. - DavidWBrooks 12:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

category foolishness

Both Technology neologisms and Computing portmanteaus are listed as categories! ("Webmob" is in the first but "spamdexing" is the second; go figure.) What's next: Cyberspace initialisms? Electronic alliteration? Nanotech Spanglish? - DavidWBrooks 18:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I removed Category:Technology neologisms Edward 20:01:37, 2005-08-30 (UTC)

Too bad, in a way; I was looking forward to Category:Nanotech Spanglish - DavidWBrooks 01:52, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

2002 item removed

I have just removed the following sentence from the "initial development" section, because it implies that the site did not include RSS feeds, which is key. This sounds like it was just a Web list of audio files, and people had to surf to it to see if things had changed; lots of people had pages like that. If I am in error - that is, if it included RSS feeds or some equivalent mechanism allowing automatic update notification - please return it to the article with that edit, because it's a very cool addition. - DavidWBrooks 14:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Meantime, in June 2002, Brazilian user Francisco Madureira developed during a journalism class at Universidade de São Paulo a simple website called BlogÃh, which put MP3 files and Winamp playlists together so that students could listen to news updates and stay in touch with campus issues while surfing the internet.

podcasting for class

I believe it will take a long time before we see podcasting really take over the distrobution of digital files.

And just think what a horrible effect it would have on our spelling!