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Sat, 15 Nov 2008

'podcasting' considered harmful?

The terms 'podcast' and 'podcasting', to mean 'an RSS feed with associated audio content' and the process of creating the aforementioned respectively, are massively prevalent in the zeitgeist at the moment. However, the terms do refer to Apple products in their names (if somewhat obliquely), that being where the idea really exploded into the public awareness.

The GNU Project publishes a list of words to avoid. I don't think that 'podcast' and 'podcasting' belong on that particular list, as they don't directly affect GNU software (that I am aware of). But should those terms be included there in spirit?

I'm not sure I really care, but it's something that popped into my head just now, people's responses to which I would be interested to hear.

So, what do you think?

Posted: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:27 | Tags: , , | Comments: 1

Comments

I don't like that the word 'podcast' has become the standard term. Like you say, it is clearly Apple's word. The word 'iPod' has even become synonymous with 'MP3 player'* amongst those too young/uneducated to know any better.

But how can we fight it? It would be good to see 'podcasting' on the 'avoid' list, I suppose, so at least we could eventually get it out of the vocabulary of the technophiles. Then again, they advocate "GLAMP" instead of "LAMP" and "GNU/Linux" and other things that aren't going to take off...

It's a pretty stupid term anyway... people could download prerecorded audio or listen to streaming audio long before Apple got on the digital music scene.

*Sorry, 'digital audio player'
Posted by Will at Fri Nov 21 17:56:01 2008

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