Open The Dialogue

Chris Thilk IMed me on Monday with a link to this post at Signal vs. Noise about how Creative has backronymed “podcast” with “Personal On Demand broadCAST.” It’s unclear what the timing is on this, as in when Creative posted this (one commenter says it was sometime last year, another mentions late 2004), but I’d have to say that the “generally accepted” concept behind podcasting is that it’s not an acronym for anything.

This is, IMHO, one of the better examples of how the thinkers-at-large get frustrated with marketers attempting to co-opt, rather than just join in the fray, to new trends. It’s great to be a thought leader, it’s another thing to try and pull the rug out from a generally accepted principle or concept.

ClickZ’s Pamela Parker reports Thursday that Lexus is going all new media on us with its latest campaign, LexusFusion.com, which is using podcasts and video to market the new IS model. This marketing effort is specifically aimed at the African-American community, and features music selections in the hip-hop / jazz fusion genre. In addition to the above-mentioned elements, Lexus is also advertising widely on blogs.

[via Marketing VOX]

Interested in podcasting about technology-related stuff but aren’t sure where to start? Check out Ben Bishop’s list, the 10 Best Tech Podcasts of 2005.

Over the weekend, it was noted that iPodder had changed its name to Juice Receiver. On the podcasters Yahoo! Group that Scoble links to, developer Scott Grayban talks about how Apple was claiming that the use of “iPod” in the software’s name was “decieving users that our software was connected to Apple’s iPod device.” While most of us know the difference, obviously, it’s not surprising to me one bit that Apple made this move. Frankly, I’m surprised no one has gone after the fact that “podcasting” as a whole is only deemed that because of the ubiquity of iPod in our lives. If and when the iPod doesn’t exist any longer as the portable audio device of choice for many, will the name change from “podcasting” to something else? Doubt it – but what we’re seeing here is how something is named and remembered as lore after some time – leading to lots of “why is that called that, anyway?” questions years down the road.

One of the hardest things to convey to those who are skeptical of the digital world is the number of people who are interacting and using these tools on a regular basis. And with various statistics showing low numbers – of overall Internet users – who read or write blogs stalling efforts by companies and other organizations to jump on board, it’s important to really get to the nitty gritty with these numbers. Dave Winer links this morning to a NYTimes item this morning from Tom Zeller, Jr. about what those stats look like when sliced down to those between 12 and 17 years old who are “active online.” Zeller cites a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey that shows that within that demographic, a whopping 57% of individuals “create digital content.”