I’d Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson

Stacia, you brought up an important point: exactly what qualifies as a podcast? The definition is not agreed upon by everyone. Some view anything online in audio form as a podcast. If you were to record one event and add a link it as a link on a website, some might say that’s a podcast, even if it’s the only online audio show one ever does.

Others require a serial distribution with an RSS feed. And then there’s content like This American Life, which is primarily a radio show that started making its archives available online. But on their site they even use the term podcast (though it’s not the main term), because this term is more easily understood. One “subscribes to a podcast.” Subscribing to a radio show is more confusing, in my opinion.

But the shows are also so elaborately constructed and professionally done that they hardly fit the model of 99% of other podcasts. However, since they deliver it in MP3 format on a weekly basis, I would consider it a podcast.

I did reword my description a bit to soften the word podcast.

By the way, what is it about the term podcasts that you dislike? Apple benefited tremendously on the term. I don’t have an iPod, but I’m a podcaster. Leo Laporte’s term is netcast, but it hasn’t spread.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for responding to my comment. I think this page from the PRI website shows what I’m talking about:

http://pri.org/ways_listen.html

It’s ways to listen to PRI programs.

A program like “This American Life” is a radio show (the top listed item). A version of that show can also be heard by subscribing to a feed and listening to the “podcast” (which as you know is just an .mp3 copy of the show). There is no way around these definitions. You say “However, since they deliver it in MP3 format on a weekly basis, I would consider it a podcast,” but I can also listen to it via my Tivo, does that make it a TV show? Offering a variation on the traditional distribution model does not change the entire product. Of course they call “This American Life” a podcast on the podcast page, but they do not on the program’s official page (http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/pri/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&sid=10&id=1045290&pid=1023)

But what you mention about people calling any old audio file or stream on a site a “podcast” is another pet peeve of mine. These ways to distribute audio have existed almost as long as the web has. What is NEW is the idea of RSS and feeds and subscribing so the file is automatically downloaded to your computer. The real change in technology here is the automation, not in the audio or file format. It’s like how some old web people think blogs aren’t any different from an old fashioned, static web page.

I championed Leo Laporte’s idea of netcast because it’s more descriptive. Why do I care what an aging MTV VJ wants to call something? It has nothing to do with iPods or even mp3 players. In fact, as I’m sure you know, most people listen to the TWiT podcast on their computers. Some even burn to CDs. The term is confusing and therefore misused. Very irksome.

[...] I’d Rather Be Writing has an interesting post on a recent episode of the NPR show, This American Life: The point of the show is that glamorous jobs usually turn out to be boring. The cartographer’s story was one of the most interesting: Charles Preuss … charted the Western Territories with two of American history’s legendary explorers—John Charles Fremont and Kit Carson. The maps Preuss made were best sellers and helped open the Western frontier to settlement. But, as he wrote in the diary he kept while in the wilderness, he hated pretty much every minute of the expedition. [...]

[...] if we’re not following our true callings, most glamorous jobs turn out to be a bit boring anyway. Even prize-winning novelists approach their work as a job. They don’t always feel [...]