“One of the bigger trends on the Internet right now is ‘podcasting,’ in which someone can subscribe to amateur and professional audio programs, automatically downloaded to a portable device. The name is derived from the words broadcasting and iPod, Apple Computer’s music player. And that poses a slight problem for Microsoft employees who want to take part in the trend. The iPod uses a music format that rivals Microsoft’s Windows Media, and Microsoft software, in turn, runs devices that compete with the iPod,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
“So how do you create a ‘podcast’ without implicitly acknowledging the ubiquity of the product from one of your company’s competitors? Why, you ‘blogcast,’ of course. That slightly awkward name, apparently derived from the words weblog and broadcast, is being used by several Microsoft employees to offer their own audio programs over the Internet,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Note to Microsoft employees using the term “blogcast” instead of podcast: you’re looking foolish. You lost. Get used to it, more losing is on the way. The Age of Mediocrsoft is ending.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft ‘Plays For Sure’ logos don’t always guarantee your music will play for sure – July 06, 2005
Windows Longhorn (aka Win XP SP3) spells big trouble for Microsoft – July 01, 2005
Apple iTunes leaves Microsoft Media Player in the dust – July 01, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
Apple to unleash Leopard on Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn; Mac OS X 10.5 due late 2006 – early 2007 – June 07, 2005
Report: Microsoft’s ‘Longhorn’ release slipping into mid-2007 – June 03, 2005
Is Microsoft finally about to crumble? – May 26, 2005
Forrester CEO: ‘Microsoft is in its most vulnerable moment in history’ – May 09, 2005
Analyst: Tiger proves ‘Apple is light years ahead of Microsoft in developing PC operating systems’ – April 12, 2005
97,467 Microsoft Windows viruses vs. zero for Apple Mac’s OS X – April 05, 2005
Microsoft’s lack of momentum, malaise won’t end anytime soon – March 16, 2005
wow…why stop there…as long as you’re trying to rename stuff…go for microcast…or name it after the windoze media player and call it BUFFERCAST!
A blogcast is nothing like a podcast.
Blogs are electronic diary entries on a website – a podcast is a audio show/content published to itunes.
All Microsoft have done here is totally confuse people with the term ‘blogcast’.
IT IS NOT A BLOGCAST MICROSOFT!!
Get used to it! – IM AFFRAID THE IPOD IS NOW EMBEDDED IN POPULAR CULTURE – AND THERES FSCK ALL U CAN DO ABOUT IT!!
Expect some new entries in the Official Oxford English Dictionary in 2006:
1. Ipod
2. Podcast
I had a blogcast once.
Penicillin, therepy and monogamy cured it.
Bless.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that the term ‘blogcast’ is actually better for what we’re describing here… more generic…
Why do I think this way? Ask the companies that make facial tissue, photocopiers and acetylsalicylic acid… Or, Kleenex, Xeroxes and Aspirin, for those who use the trademarked names interchangeably with the generic names.
Apple runs the risk of diluting it’s brand recognition by making ‘iPod’ or its variants interchangeble with a particular process or technology.
“WMAcast” (M$ consider this copyrighted as of this moment) doesn’t quite do it either. Get used to the term M$! I hope Balmer and Gates can understand they’ve lost.
I had a blog cast hanging from my nsoe this morning….
What about the 99% of podcasts that dont have anything to do with blogs…. is MS retarted?
Hey bill, Why dont you cash that check from claria and call it quits… for real.. just go away..
A quick Google search displays over 64,000 records using the term blogcast, most of the first page references Microsoft. Of course a search for podcast returns 11,600,000 records, so I’d say Microsoft still has quite the way to go. Besides even Wikipedia redirects the term blogcast back to podcasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogcast . I’d say a year and half ago would have been the time to combat the term.
Believe it or not, “he” is both the male and neuter form in English, yet there are those who persist in euphemistic foolishness as “he/she” in speech, as well as writing. Changing the name from podcast to something else sounds just as silly and transparent.
By the way, it was called “xerography” before it was called photocopying.
Speaking of euphemisms
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/11/1230239&tid=187&tid=1
tunecast?
audiocast?
Podcast works for me. Generic? Everytime someone says Kleenex the company gets a little ad. Who here hasn’t cringed when someone says “open a new WINDOW’ while referring to a Mac application.
Right on regarding he/she. Screwing up the English language to satisfy some idiotic political agenda is not a good idea. And no, I also don’t like “herstory” instead of history. That’s the same mindset that got a DC mayor’s aide fired because he use the word niggardly, and some ignoramus in the meeting mistakenly thought it was a racial epithet. Resist the language police!!
Just one girl’s opinion,
Kate
Left Rear Tire–
Who here hasn’t cringed when someone says “open a new WINDOW’ while referring to a Mac application.
Ummm… Mac had “windows” before Windows ever did. Why would you cringe?
My question is; does Gnomedex have anything to do with Gnome and Linux or is it something to overshadow Gnome (and Linux) and its namesakes?
Touchy that we’re losing badly in the music/audio department, aren’t we M$???
Another example of an outright STUPID name MS comes up for something. Im surprised they don’t call it something like Windows Media Enhanced Personal Recording Platform or some nonsense like that.
What was the last thing they came up with? Hypervisor? Frickin stupid.
MW society, as in Society has deemed the name is Podcast, not some Microsoft inspired pseudo-name.
PODCAST – pretentious
BLOGCAST – stupid
Or from a moron’s perspective: http://myitforum.techtarget.com/blog/rtrent/archive/2005/06/09/8553.aspx
MDN:
It’s Micros**t.
Not Mediocrsoft or even Micro$oft.
Micros**t.
Metryq:
Sorry friend, but English has NO gender-specific identifiers, let alone a ‘neuter’ as you put it. They do not exist in the language.
Anyone studying languages would know that. All latin-based languages [esp. French, Spanish, Italian, etc] contain male and female identifiers, but do not contain a neuter. Even though modern English is 60% derived from French, the use of gender specifiers are absent.
I think you can buy one “blogcast” on MSN and get five free ones.
Plastercast?
That might help heal Microshafts broken (loose) grip on technology!
Sorry, that last word should have read ‘reality’…
None of the terms really fit. However it’s not what is correct, it’s what people use. mp3 has become synonymous with digital music and is unlikely to be usurped for some time – who really cares that much? Surely microsoft have bigger problems to fix (like getting longhorn, or xp sp3 to work)?
Can’t say I would have much interest in hearing any commentaries from Microsoft employees.
Probably best they call it something other than Podcast since that makes it easier to avoid. ;o)
WEBBLOG = MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WEBPOD = COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
BLOG, Hmmmm. Sounds like the name of a caveman with long horns. MOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
To the guy who feared “Apple runs the risk of diluting its brand recognition by making ‘iPod’ or it’s variants interchangeble with a particular process or technology”…
Trust me, the makers of Kleenex, Q-Tips, Chap Stick, Scotch Tape, and other products whose brand names are used to mean the whole category, are hardly bemoaning their situation. It is a VERY enviable position to be in.
For example, consumers are subconsciously driven to buy Kleenex because it’s “the real thing”. You go to the grocery to buy “kleenex”, and there’s a box with “Kleenex” written on it in big letters. The consumer will always see that first.
Think about the Walkman. For many years, “Walkman” meant “personal cassette player” (and still does to many people). Sony certainly didn’t suffer from this.
Apple would like nothing better than for “iPod” to come to mean “compact digital audio player”. Believe it.