The iPod is dead, however the podcast resides on

Pour one out for the iPod, the stunning little device of my teenage dreams. While Apple lastly stopped the last iPod design today, the “pod” lives on in the digital audio medium all of us love and obsess over.

The iPod was never ever actually the format where the podcast thrived (that would be the smart device), however at the time podcasts were beginning, the iPod was practically the only video game in the area. In 2004, the iPod managed 60 percent of the overall MP3 gamer market. It was the default alternative for listening to audio programs on the go, if an inelegant one.

” It was a dreadful experience,” states Leo Laporte, creator of early digital audio outlet This Week in Tech(TwiT) and host of radio program The Tech Guy “You needed to download it to your computer system, link your computer system through iTunes to your iPod, copy it over your iPod, and after that you might listen to it.”

But with the gizmo common, the “podcast” name looked like a natural suitable for the scrappy online audio reveals that were beginning to emerge. Natural that 2 individuals declare to have actually individually combined “iPod” and “broadcast” together. The very first tape-recorded circumstances remains in a 2004 Guardian post by reporter and technologist Ben Hammersley where he tossed around prospective names for the medium (” GuerillaMedia” didn’t capture). That very same year, digital audio leader Dannie Gregoire called among his software application “podcaster” and signed up domain including the word “podcast,” then promoted it with the assistance of previous MTV VJ and early podcast host Adam Curry. Gregoire states he had actually not understood Hammersley’s short article prior to creating the name. “It’s an apparent word to come up with, offered the innovation,” he stated. Hammersley did not react to ask for remark.

Either method, it captured on. Apple not just let the word live, in spite of prospective hallmark violation, however it accepted the medium totally by developing a podcast directory site in iTunes in2005 That very same year, George W. Bush started launching his governmental radio addresses in podcast kind. The New Oxford American Dictionary paid attention to all the hubbub and made “podcast” its 2005 word of the year

Not everybody was delighted. For many years, Laporte combated— and lost– the fight to rebrand “podcasting” as “netcasting,” arguing that the word connected the kind too carefully to Apple. Time has actually shown him ideal and incorrect. Yes, the iPod was a short lived stage in the run of podcasting. The word outgrew its name to the point where Apple is simply one part of the podcasting community and not even the dominant one. Spotify has actually taken its crown as the most-used platform for podcasting, and Apple’s podcast programs is very little, at finest.

Even so, the word is unavoidable. A couple of years back, Laporte relented and lastly altered the TWiT Netcast Network to the TWiT Podcast Network. “That’s the method language is,” he stated. “You can’t combat it.”

This story initially ran in Hot Pod, The Verge‘s preeminent audio market newsletter. You can subscribe here for more scoops, analysis, and reporting.