Podcasting: A Decade in the Life of a “New” Audio Medium: Introduction

Abstract

Podcasting came of age in 2005, a full decade ago. The roots of podcasting date back to 2000, though, when software developer Dave Winer published RSS 0.92, a new version of the RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) Web syndication format—one of the back bones of newsfeed aggregators and Web 2.0 tools like blogs—that enabled digital audio files to be delivered in RSS feeds. Winer created these ‘‘audioblogging’’ capabilities in response to requests from former MTV VJ Adam Curry (Winer, 2000). Over the next few years, Winer, Curry, and other Internet technology insiders experimented with carrying audio files in RSS feeds. It was not until 2004, however, that what was beginning to become known as ‘‘podcasting’’ emerged as a viable technology with many citing Curry’s release of an RSS-to-iPod ‘‘podcatcher’’ client, iPodder, along with his launch of podcasting’s first breakout program, Daily Source Code, as watershed moments in the medium’s path to widespread use (Chen, 2009). The year 2005 went on to become ‘‘the year of the podcast’’ (Bowers, 2005), the emergence of the new medium being solidified in June 2015 when Apple upgraded to iTunes 4.9, the first version of the software to provide fully integrated podcast support; Apple’s new podcast directory made it simple for ordinary users to search for and subscribe to podcasts (Friess, 2015). iTunes 4.9 effectively brought podcasting into the cultural mainstream. Fast forward to July 2013, when Apple surpassed the one billion subscriptions mark for podcasts via its iTunes platform—a remarkable milestone for a medium that was barely a decade old and, in the intervening years, had descended from ‘‘next big thing’’ to has-been status, routinely regarded as little more than a niche or fringe format. Indeed, nearly as soon as it began, Web and tech industry commentators