Monday, May 23, 2005

The Cleanliness Technician's Latest Podcast

[Rant] Ok, at the risk of once again losing many of my iPple loving friends, can I please just ask one thing. It's a simple thing - I don't know why I get worked up over it every time I see it (everywhere) but I do. Yes life's to short, yes it's not worth the stress, but please, please, please can we stop it with Podcasting.

Maybe I'm a luddite and I don't understand the technical nuances of it all, but to be frank, long before there was iPods and Podcasting, you could actually download MP3s of people talking and shows and stuff.

Now, I realise that Podcasting also involves software that chooses your *MP3 DOWNLOADS* and downloads them to your desktop and synchs with your *MP3 PLAYER*. So maybe its not fair to call them *MP3 DOWNLOADS* as they are actually *MP3 DOWNLOADS WITH DOWNLOAD MANAGING SOFTWARE*

Seriously, can we please stop giving it a pointless technological name when a perfectly good one exists. You can call them MP3 Downloads or even downloadable MP3s, basically because that's what they are and they're what us mere mortals understand. It's perfectly good.

Just because some geeky types got bored and discovered you can use the line in on the sound card to record rambling monologues (pot and kettle there I realise) doesn't mean we need to give it a new name just to make it sound hip and cool. Just stop it, its worse than flaming flashmobs. [/RANT]

Posted by Dio Bach at 21:38

6 Comments:

wonderful_electric said...: But podcasting is a much friendlier word than MP3 downloads or MP3 casting. It just sounds better - there's no numbers, no acronyms. And pod is a nice-sounding word. It's not an accident why Apple called it an iPod and not a iMP3 player.

Otherwise, yeah, it's radio with a timer button.; 10:57 AM
Joe G said...: You always seem to be wilfully obtuse about this. Podcasting means a programme that I regularly listen to (such as Today) appears automatically on my iPod every morning by the time I leave for work, should I desire. The next day there will be the new day's edition, delivered directly to my player without me having to do anything. There's a clear difference between that and an mp3 download.

Your argument is a little like saying RDS is LIKE A RADIO TUNER, ONLY AN ACRONYM. Podcasting is a great way of delivering *current* content directly and regularly to people. My problem is that it's a fairly new technology, and like Geocities homepages and (latterly) blogging, many people are already using it to bang on randomly about the minutiae of their lives (there are already podcasts on beer and sex, for example) rather than something with a wider reach. This will change in time.

Agreed on the flashmobs though.; 3:23 PM
RR said...: Hey, you can write about it which means your understanding is about 100% more than mine on the whole music downloady thingy. My kids keep trying to explain it too but I seem to be all tech'd out by blogging!!! Leave it to the younger generation Dio - it's an age thing ;-); 6:25 PM
Dio Bach said...: RR - It's not an age thing! I understand the whole concept of podcasting - what I object to is calling an old technology something new just for the sake of sounding cool. My comments about understanding it were facetious - its essentially automated downloading and synching of on-demand MP3s via RSS and software - all of which are as old as the hills and far from a new technology.

What I object to is the sudden bandwagon jumping and rush to be seen doing it, when people have been doing for a long time in different forms without the need to glamorise it and align it with the fashion victim's MP3 player of choice.

Imagine people suddenly started talking about 'Meme iVinyl Surfing', only to find out they were simply playing old fashioned records with the whole in the middle. Not only that, but everywhere you looked it was there. That's what annoys me - suddenly everyone has to be Meme iVinyl Surfing rather than playing LPs. If you're merely playing LPs you're second-class and not down with the hip kids. Like the iPod it?s a case of the emperor's new clothes.; 7:19 PM
holly said...: I have no idea what podcasting is, and I would definitely consider myself to be an iPple (I love that). I feel elated! This must mean I'm getting out of the house more!

(Am I hopelessly out of date because I still buy CDs?); 1:06 PM
Dio Bach said...: CDs? Nah... I still buy 'em, you'd be really old fashioned if you still bought 8 track tapes. Anything else analogue pretty much still rawks. :D; 9:53 PM