This week, I listened to episode 167 of the Radio Survivor podcast, titled “Alternative Histories of Podcasting“. The guest was Andrew Bottomley of SUNY-Oneonta, and the conversation covered the “popular” start of podcasting (Dave Winer, Christopher Lydon, Adam Curry, et al), and a look at audio available on the Internet before the 2004-2005 time period. The hosts seemed to take issue with defining “podcasting” as the technical tools making it possible to subscribe to audio files (podcasts) and easily load them to mobile devices (MP3 players, smartphones). I do not deny that the examples that Dr. Bottomley gave of Internet audio files pre-2004 were correct, but I think there is a reason why they were not called podcasting – because there was no “pod” available! For better or worse, the iPod was the first convenient audio player, iTunes was the first convenient way to get audio on a device, and the name “podcasting” grew out of the development of these tools and other tools of audio production and distribution.
I hope that Dr. Bottomley will document his research in this area (seems like he is working on a book). However, I am more interested in finding good podcasts to listen to, and playing around with creating podcasts myself. As Dave Winer has pointed out, creating and distributing podcasts is an open platform – anyone can do it. People can disagree on “who was first” or “what is a podcast”, but I want to focus on the practitioners, the people who are creating podcasts, no matter what the topic.
@AndySylvester nice article. Funny @ron published an old article of his around blogging earlier today .. where of course @Dave is also central to the discussion.
Re new podcasts to listen to … we proably need an indie directory of same.
Any volunteers?
@JohnPhilpin there is the microcast club.
@JohnPhilpin thanks for the comment, I saw the microcast.club reference, will check that out.
@JohnPhilpin I’ve got a Podcast category and Microcast sub category in the directory. Not a lot there, just a starter set as I find them.
@jgmac1106 Forgot all about that one – thankyou
// @ron @brandenslen
@AndySylvester still unsure ( and yes – it is probably juts me !!!) how replies from you are coming here – can you share your set up …
@JohnPhilpin Hello. This is your temporary username auto correct calling…
@jenett gah … I keep adding that d don’t I … thankyou
// @bradenslen
@JohnPhilpin I am using the WordPress webmention plugin, and I have received all of the replies that have occurred on this micro.blog thread. I am going to assume that since micro.blog supports webmentions, that is how I am seeing the comments at andysylvester.com.
@AndySylvester Google says the iPod was first released on 10/23/01, about 8 1⁄2 months after the Macintosh version of iTunes was released. So couldn’t we use that date for the start of podcasting, not 2004? Dave uses 2001 in his {article on the subject too.](http://scripting.com/2018/06/10/192326.html)
@AndySylvester that would be it ….. lovely job
@AndySylvester Google says the iPod was first released on 10/23/01, about 8 1⁄2 months after the Macintosh version of iTunes was released. So couldn’t we use that date for the start of podcasting, not 2004? Dave uses 2001 in his article on the subject too.
My recollection from following Adam Curry and Dave Winer at the time is that podcasting started with Adam and Dave making audio “blog” posts and posting links to them on their blogs. That led Adam to cobble together a way to load the recordings on his iPod and then seeing that Dave recognized that RSS could be used for distribution of podcasts. I think Adam came up with the first “podcatcher” akin to our podcast apps while Dave incorporated podcasts into Radio Userland. The Daily Source Code podcast at the very first was Adam talking about the scripting code he cobbled together to collect the audio files. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Source_Code
Recording audio and distributing on the Internet wasn’t new. But I don’t think the podcatcher/RSS distribution method existed prior and is the unique art.
@AndySylvester So the Wikipedia article that Frank pointed to says Adam Curry started podcasting on August 13, 2004. But Dave also helped Christopher Lydon before that and they produced Lydon’s first show (with MP3) in June 2003. The iPod and RSS both existed by then, so it seems like June 2003 would be the earliest date for the birth of podcasting. BUT as early as March 2001, Dave was sending out a daily MP3 of Grateful Dead music. Well that was seven months before the iPod was first released, so we probably shouldn’t call that podcasting.
I think the other guy Dave helped might have been before that.
@AndySylvester So the Wikipedia article that Frank pointed to says Adam Curry started podcasting on August 13, 2004. But Dave also helped Christopher Lydon before that and they produced Lydon’s first show (with MP3) in June 2003. The iPod and RSS both existed by then, so it seems like June 2003 might be the earliest date for the birth of podcasting. BUT as early as March 2001, Dave was sending out a daily MP3 of Grateful Dead music. Well that was seven months before the iPod was first released, so we probably shouldn’t call that podcasting.
@Ron good find! looks like March 2001 is the “technical” start of podcasting (distribution of audio content via RSS – my definition).
@AndySylvester If you use that definition, Dave was likely the first with his daily Grateful Dead song. But as you pointed out before, the pod part had not yet been invented. Sending audio by RSS seems much more to be the core of the technology that was involved. A hippie did it!