Blogarithms

I guess the people at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office haven’t figured out how to use The Google for research into prior art. Read Write Web reports that VoloMedia has been issued a U.S. patent for podcasting based on an application filed in November 2003. Where the heck did that come from?

In September 2003 Dave Winer created what I consider to be the first podcast, an RSS feed with enclosures for Chris Lydon’s interviews. On September 24, 2003 I created what I believe was the second podcast, IT Conversation and announced it on my blog. Regardless of who you think invented podcasting, it certainly occurred in September 2003 at the latest.

See also: Dave Winer’s blog and Wikipedia. (Disclaimer: I contributed to the History of Podcasting article on Wikipedia.)

Update July 30, 2009: Today someone added and then someone else removed information about the patent application and award from Wikipedia’s History of Podcasting page. I may not like the patent, but I see no reason to remove the facts from the article.