So I was listening to an episode of Podcast 411 a few weeks back, and Rob mentioned he was doing a show called Today in Podcasting. Having not heard of this show before, I decided to subscribe. There is a lot of shows, and I only recently got around, with all the other shows I listen to, to hearing the shows with Rob in them. I am now at the post PPME 2006 episodes, and I am kind of... getting annoyed. Now, this show allows Rob and the other hosts, Gary Leland of Podcast Pickle and Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting, to go on a bit about stuff they are passionate about. I have nothing against that. Really, I don't. The issue is that the show seems to be, in the last few episodes, a Netcast trashing ritual.
For those not in the know, there was some uproar about Apple sending a cease and desist notice to a company, Podcast Ready, for trademark infringement. Leo, at PPME, in his Keynote, suggested that the name of the art we all love should be called Netcasting, not Podcasting, to prevent Apple getting their panties in a twist. Well, many people, including Rob, got into an uproar, and Rob even put out a special episode over the topic. I wanted to point out that, while Rob had the benefit of time to research the matter, as I understand it this came up during the expo, and thus people where left with only two options, react from the heart based on what was being reported, or ignore it. These are podcasters, so they took the former.
Let me digress to my original topic. First, if I post something on Wikipedia saying that.. I dunno, Podcasting is fishing using a peapod, not a format for getting audio programming that can be listened to when one chooses to, that does not make it accurate or true. Nor does putting one's own personal definition on a site make it true. It is Rob's definition of netcasting, not the worlds. Rob also said on the TIP episode where Tee Morris hosted that "Netcast just reminds me of streaming and netcasting, it's everything podcasting was meant not to be. It was not to tie you to the internet, not to tie you to your chair, and it was to free tou up and let you listen when you want, where you want, and how you want. I don't think the name netcast conveys that. At all."
This is Rob's opinion, and he has a right to it, but to go so far as to push that definition on the rest of the community by including his definition of netcast into a site that so many people use like the Urban Dictionary is just dictatorial. I think Netcast isn't the best, but it is far less device specific than Podcast. Yeah, people will get smart and figure it out, assuming podcasting doesn't become as much of a joke to people as bloggging is now, but as one of those who has to explain every time I mention my show, I would rather not have to if there was an alternative. I just think that so far, in the shows I have listened to, that it has devolved into Rob Walch's second show about podcasting. I will keep listening to hope this changes.
