Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 11:26 AM

Podcasting grew out of blogging

There's no way to separate them.

You couldn't have had podcasting without a lot of things coming together.

  1. Networks of writers who shared links. Blogging.

  2. A protocol for moving links around a network. HTTP.

  3. Something to attach links and recordings to. RSS.

  4. A standard format for recording. MP3.

  5. Inexpensive, easy to use playback devices, that could hook up to all this. iPod.

You might argue that we still haven't gotten all the pieces needed for it to really work. But one thing is for sure, none of the pieces existed when the famous patent troll claims to have invented podcasting.

Maybe we should reach not for a victory but for understanding. The patent system is making decisions about technological processes it doesn't understand. No wonder it gets it so wrong.


Last built: Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 5:51 PM

By Dave Winer, Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 11:26 AM. It's even worse than it appears.