Spreading the aloha of Macintosh, Hawaiian music and island culture from the sunset side of Haleakala volcano on the wonderful island of Maui

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Tuesday, February 8, 2005

Dan Gillmor still doesn't get it! Alpha blogger has no future in marketing Dan Gillmor, the famous Blogger and formerly real journalist at the San Jose Merc, currently sports a nice short link to Lisa William's Flash presentation which does a great job of visually explaining Podcasting. Link "Podcasting De-Mythologized Lisa Williams has done a smart, 4-minute video explainer about podcasting." For some reason though, he goes on to say: "Now, if we could only give the genre a more accurate name. It's about sending MP3s to devices of various kinds, not solely the iPod..." So, why did he waste an entire paragraph besmerching the word 'PodCast'? Doesn't he have better things to do? Hasn't he ever read any books on marketing or well... THOUGHT about this? The problem is that dear Dan and so many others just do not understand how names, memes and cultural icons work. You see; if it was called 'Webcasting' or 'Audioblogging' we wouldn't be talking about it. There would be no flood of realmedia articles, no Adam Curry interviews, no threat to corporate broadcast media. There would be nothing but RealAudio at your desk, crappy Windows Media streams and more of the same-old-shit technology. The word 'Podcasting" instead gave a ripe and ready concept the final element necessary to turn it into a social phenomenon - a short, memorable sexy name. Without the entire combination of timing, Apple's brilliant marketing and industrial design, Adam Curry and Dave Winer's compulsions, blind luck and many other small elements there would be no Podcasting by any name. I wish the Beatles had found a better name, Jimi Hendrix hadn't died and George Herbert W. Bush had been born sterile, but it's never that simple. The Beatles by any other name wouldn't have been the same, Jimi would probably be an embarrassment today mumbling Purple Haze over the heads of a bored crowd of rednecks at the Cobb County Fair. Thousands of American soldiers and the county's economy might still be alive though. But once a phenomenon like this is out of the bag, there can be no name change, not until it is crushed, tamed and made safe by the corporations and their pet governments. Or the other way around. So get used to it ya'll because it's PODCASTING and it's coming to get ya! 4:43:33 PM    comment []