A podcast is typically a digital audio file distributed on the internet, to be downloaded for later listening on a computer or portable audio player.
What the origin of this word?
The Online Etymology Dictionary says:
2004, noun and verb, from pod-, from iPod, brand of portable media player, + second element abstracted from broadcast. Related: Podcasting.
I'd like to know more. How did this come about? How was it adopted? Who came up with and popularised it?
Best Answer
Summary
Journalist Ben Hammersley first suggested podcasting in February 2004 in the Guardian newspaper but it didn't catch on. Developer Dannie J. Gregoire later used podcaster in a mailing list for podcast app developers, seemingly independently, and it caught on and spread from there.
Antedatings
The Oxford English Dictionary recently added podcast and its variants. Here's their first-known dates and the antedatings I found:
podcasting, n.
On 12th February 2004, Ben Hammersley wrote in the Guardian:
podcaster, n.
Yet the term didn't quite catch on amongst the early podcasters, who were still figuring out the technical ins and outs of creating and distributing podcasts. On 13th September 2004, Adam Curry created a tech discussion group called iPodder-dev.
On 16th September 2004, Dannie J. Gregoire wrote:
Well, podes and sodes didn't catch on, but soon the developer community enthusiastically adopted podcast in all its forms and used them on the iPodder-dev list, in their applications and podcasts.
podcast, n. and v.
In his Evil Genius Chronicles podcast episode "Audioblog for Sept 18, 2004") (mp3) Dave Slusher says (from around the 16m10s mark):
He also blogged briefly about it the same day.
podcasting, compounds, General attrib.
Dave Slusher's Evil Genius Chronicles again, in "Audioblog for Sept 20, 2004" (mp3) (from 24min):
podcasted, adj.
Eric Rice, 29th September 2004, "Broadcast the Podcast":