Who invented podcasting

TIPPINST -- A common question asked of search engines is "who invented podcasting"? The answer we teach in our Media Studies course: Dave Winer and Adam Curry co-developed the concept and programmed the standards. It's important to note the joint authorship of podcasting because revisionism is at work.

What was once a personal spat between Dave Winer and Adam Curry over authorship of podcasting now has public commentators weighing in toe revise the order of events. Alex Beam, a columnist for The Boston Globe, thinks Curry is the main man. In a piece called, "Bickering among the 'Pod squad," he refers to Winer as a geek and "one who does not play well with others," while calling Curry, among other things, a "supercool helicopter pilot and promoter extraordinaire." Those pleasantries raise doubts about the objectivity of the reporter.

As multimedia developer Liam Burke documented in his excellent third level project, both Curry and Winer discussed how to podcast over a series of linked pieces. Podcasting evolved as a kind of radio show that archives to portable playback devices. Winer articulated how to make the podcasts work as part of RSS feeds for automatic downloading to your hard drive. Curry wrote a few lines of code that enabled standard iPod synchronisation to the downloaded track.

In some circles today, Curry holds the title of "The Podfather". That's humourous but not an accurate picture of the heavy lifting behind the scenes by people like Dave Winer.

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Terry Heaton -- "Podcasting's allure to the broadcasters" and  podcasting developers.
Alex Beam -- "Bickering among the 'pod squad"

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Comments

[Danny]

I'm sorry, but I'd suggest that what you're teaching is very misleading. It's particularly galling when you talk of revisionism yourself. Narrowing the development down to one or two individuals may make a better story, but factually incorrect.

"Who invented X?" is a line hinted (never said directly) to the media by people who want to have their name at X, irrespective of the reality. In this case "podcasting" is just another application of a whole stack of technologies, there's no particular technical innovation that sets it apart from other applications. What does set it apart is heavy promotion.