"Podcasting" is a portmanteau that combines two words: "iPod" and "broadcasting."

The term is a misnomer since neither podcasting nor listening to podcasts requires an iPod or any portable player, and no broadcasting is required. The term is also sometimes criticized as giving undue credit to Apple for a technology which it had very little to do with creating. Aware of this potential misunderstanding, some writers have suggested alternative names. One such alternative is "blogcasting", which implies content based on, or similar in format to, blogs. Others include "audioblogging" and "rsscasting".

As of 2005, the term seemed to have become established as "podcasting," however, largely because of its phonetic similarity to "broadcasting" and because of the iPod's current domination of the portable audio player market. Some writers (notably Macintosh pundit John Gruber, see his Is That a Podcast in Your Pocket?) speculate that the word itself played a significant part in Apple's decision to add podcasting support to its iTunes music application, in order to confirm the company's association with the phenomenon. Others, acknowledging that an alternative term is unlikely to prevail, have suggested reinterpretations of "pod", such as "Personal, On-Demand" or phonetically "Portable Audio".^[1]

Podcasting as a medium is primarily associated with, but not limited to, audio data. Podcasting of video data is called, among other things, "video blogging" (see vlog), "video podcasting", "vlogging", "vodcasting", or "vidcasting". Other people are working on photocasting and flickrcasting.

The New Oxford American Dictionary crowned "podcasting" as the 2005 word of the year and defines the term as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player".^[2]