| Apple says no podcasters please |
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| by Stan Beer | |
| Wednesday, 27 September 2006 | |
      
The latest target for Apple's protectionist zeal are service providers in the podcast business. In fact, as far as Apple is concerned, nobody has a right to use the word podcast in its name without Apple's permission. Pardon me for asking this, and please feel free to call me stupid, but hasn't the word podcast and the concept behind it done a lot to enhance the image and profile of Apple and its newest product in the marketplace? I mean, whenever the word podcast is mentioned don't we generally think of audio content that is meant to be downloaded to and played on an iPod? Does this not mean that everytime someone uses the term podcast, that by association Apple's iPod gets some free publicity and mindshare? Apple may choose to think of it as brand dilution but in reality it's brand reinforcement. The term podacst passed into the English language of its own accord, just like webcast or the verb Google, which reinforces the noun which is the company. This brand dilution obsession is a furfy and an abuse of trademark laws, which were designed to protect companies with products like iPod from companies that try to set themsefves with competing products sporting names like ePod and so on. So when companies with names like MyPodder and Podcast ready get nasty threatening letters, Apple isn't just being a bully but it's actually doing itself a disservice. Now I have some other work to do so I think I'll do some research and Google a few names.{moscomment} |
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