Fortune: podcasting is a celebration of power of the Internet
Tuesday, July 12, 2005 - 11:51 AM EDT"One of my first illicit thrills was staying up past bedtime and tuning the AM radio to a station broadcasting only at night from hundreds of miles away across the Mexican frontier, one that played daring music—unsanitized rock & roll and rhythm and blues—that was never heard on my local stations. Midnight border radio had dangerous and exotic deejays, like Wolfman Jack, while my local station had a clean-cut guy named Sandy who played Top 20 hits straight from the Battle of the Blands," Peter Lewis writes for Fortune.
"Now, decades later, border radio is back, only this time without borders. And thanks to digital recording technology, you don't have to stay up past midnight to listen to it. It's called podcasting—the word is mashed together from Apple's "iPod" digital music player and "broadcasting"—and it is simultaneously a rebellion against the blandness of commercial radio, a demonstration of time shifting for radio, just as TiVo allows time shifting for television, and a celebration of the Internet's power to let individuals offer their own voices to a global audience," Lewis writes.
"Podcasting, which is basically blogging with the added dimension of audio, is the next logical progression in grass-roots media, just as radio emerged from print, and television emerged from radio. There are an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 regular podcasters today, publishing audio programs on the Internet for fun and perhaps someday for fame and profit," Lewis writes. "Now, 7,000 podcasters may seem insignificant compared with the millions of bloggers out there, but looked at another way, there are twice as many podcasters today as there are commercial radio stations in the U.S... [and] finding and listening to podcasts just got a lot easier with the release of Apple's iTunes 4.9, a free download from apple.com."
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft employees squeamish about 'podcast' term, try using 'blogcast' instead - July 11, 2005
The Economist: Apple's embrace of podcasting 'could have significant consequences' - July 08, 2005
Research group: U.S. podcast audience will grow to 56 million by 2010 - July 06, 2005
Apple iTunes 4.9 dramatically increases KCRW podcast downloads - July 02, 2005
Apple iTunes leaves Microsoft Media Player in the dust - July 01, 2005
Apple iTunes podcast subscriptions top one million in first two days - June 30, 2005
Analyst: iTunes 4.9 helps Apple by bringing podcasting to the masses - June 28, 2005
Apple releases iTunes 4.9 for Mac and Windows with podcasting features - June 28, 2005
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Podcasting is cool. Although, there are only have been like 2 podcasts that I like to listen to. The potential is definitely there.
Oh, and when are we going to change the name of the term to blogcasting? (Just kidding.)