I’m not certain what you had been doing in 2005, however a 15-year-old Ariel Shapiro was spending a lot of time being moody within the woods listening to The Shins on a turquoise iPod Mini. Once I moved on from it (how fickle youth are!!), my dad used it for an additional good decade so he may hearken to KC and The Sunshine Band within the pool and in addition maintain his smartphone dry. If nothing else, that Mini was a survivor.
Right this moment, on how “podcasting” is a part of the iPod’s legacy, a brand new short-form fiction podcast, and programming highlights from the Upfronts.
How the podcast outlived its namesake
Pour one out for the iPod, the gorgeous little gadget of my teenage goals. Whereas Apple lastly discontinued the final iPod mannequin this week, the “pod” lives on within the digital audio medium all of us love and obsess over.
The iPod was by no means actually the format the place the podcast flourished (that may be the smartphone), however on the time podcasts had been getting began, the iPod was just about the one recreation on the town. In 2004, the iPod managed 60 % of the entire MP3 participant market. It was the default possibility for listening to audio exhibits on the go, if an inelegant one.
“It was a horrible expertise,” says Leo Laporte, founding father of early digital audio outlet This Week in Tech (TwiT) and host of radio present The Tech Man. “You needed to obtain it to your laptop, join your laptop through iTunes to your iPod, copy it over your iPod, after which you can hearken to it.”
However with the gadget ubiquitous, the “podcast” identify appeared like a pure match for the scrappy on-line audio exhibits that had been beginning to emerge. So pure that two folks declare to have individually merged “iPod” and “broadcast” collectively. The primary recorded occasion is in a 2004 Guardian article by journalist and technologist Ben Hammersley the place he threw round potential names for the medium (“GuerillaMedia” didn’t catch). That very same yr, digital audio pioneer Dannie Gregoire named considered one of his software program applications “podcaster” and registered domains that includes the phrase “podcast,” then popularized it with the assistance of former MTV VJ and early podcast host Adam Curry. Gregoire says he had not been conscious of Hammersley’s article earlier than developing with the identify. “It’s an apparent phrase to give you, given the know-how,” he mentioned. Hammersley didn’t reply to request for remark.
Both means, it caught on. Apple not solely let the phrase stay, regardless of potential trademark infringement, however it embraced the medium wholeheartedly by making a podcast listing in iTunes in 2005. That very same yr, George W. Bush started releasing his presidential addresses in podcast kind. The New Oxford American Dictionary took discover of all of the hubbub and made “podcast” its 2005 phrase of the yr.
Not everybody was thrilled. For years, Laporte has fought – and misplaced – the battle to rebrand “podcasting” as “netcasting,” arguing that the phrase tied the shape too intently to Apple. Time has confirmed him proper and flawed. Sure, the iPod was a fleeting part within the run of podcasting. However the phrase outgrew its namesake to the purpose the place Apple is only one a part of the podcasting ecosystem and never even the dominant one. Spotify has taken its crown because the most-used platform for podcasting, and Apple’s podcast programming is minimal, at greatest.
Even so, the phrase is inescapable. Just a few years in the past, Laporte relented and eventually modified the TWiT Netcast Community to the TWiT Podcast Community. “That’s the best way language is,” he mentioned. “You may’t struggle it.”
EXCLUSIVE: Longreads founder to launch audio quick story program this summer season
Longreads founder Mark Armstrong revealed to Sizzling Pod that he will probably be launching audio firm Ursa this summer season with The Last Revival of Opal & Nev creator Dawnie Walton. Ursa will give attention to showcasing short-form tales from underrepresented writers, beginning with a flagship podcast hosted by Walton and The Secret Lives of Church Girls creator Deesha Philyaw, who will function Ursa’s editor at giant. The corporate additionally has some high-profile advisors hooked up, together with Appearances host Sharon Mashihi and The Black Record founder Franklin Leonard.
Armstrong based narrative nonfiction website Longreads in 2009 and offered the corporate to WordPress.com mum or dad firm Automattic in 2014. Armstrong, who turned Automattic’s VP of content material after the acquisition, left the corporate in 2020. That is his first enterprise since his departure.
Ursa enters a busy, if not saturated, house of short-form audio fiction. Amazon’s Audible launched a slate of quick tales in 2020, whereas podcasts have sprung as much as characteristic quick fiction like Radiotopia’s The Reality and The New Yorker: The Author’s Voice.
Upfront programming highlights
This week, the Interactive Promoting Bureau held its annual Podcast Upfronts, the place audio corporations spotlight their greatest hits and share new programming with advertisers. Though the occasion was digital (not fairly so glamorous as I’m certain subsequent week’s TV Upfronts will probably be!), the business’s greatest gamers provided some new exhibits viewers and advertisers can stay up for:
- Within the mould of the Black Impact Podcast Community and My Cultura, iHeartMedia is launching a brand new LGBTQ+ vertical of exhibits this summer season.
- After 4 years off, WNYC is bringing again its Supreme Court docket present, Extra Good, with Julia Longoria because the host. Can’t think about why the present may be related once more!
- Sony Music introduced a slate of 9 new exhibits, together with Bedtime Tales with Adam McKay, during which the author and director improvises soothing tales, and Réunion: Shark Assaults in Paradise, which is fairly self-explanatory.
- Slate is rising the frequency of exhibits What Subsequent: TBD, Mother and Dad Are Preventing, and Working from as soon as every week to twice every week.
And with that, I bid you a superb weekend. I’m going to delve into a few of my mid-aughts jams (the children say indie sleaze is again, child!).
