A podcast is a type of audio and video content where one or more presenters discuss different topics. As a rule, a podcast has its audience, format, and specific direction (finance, psychology, books, marketing, or others). Today, podcasts are released on various platforms and special applications.
Podcasts are audio programs, shows, or blogs that you can download or listen to online. The main difference between a podcast and a radio is that you can choose a genre and topic and listen whenever you want. It’s similar to Netflix or Youtube, only audio. Podcasts come in a wide variety of genres — conversational, documentary, and fiction; and topics.
In 1993, the first Internet radio show, Internet Radio Talk, appeared in the United States. It was a weekly interview show on computer topics. The recorded shows were distributed as audio files that had to be downloaded. The creator of Internet Radio Talk, Carl Malamud, said that listeners could pause and restart the audio files at will, and skip recordings they did not like.
The emergence of podcasts in their modern form was facilitated by the spread of several technologies: RSS, the MP3 audio format, and digital audio players.
The RSS (Really Simple Syndication) format was created in 2000 by developer and blogger Dave Wiener.
In 2001, Wiener demonstrated how to share media via RSS by posting a Grateful Dead song on his Scripting News blog.
However, for two years, the technology failed to find acceptance among users and other developers. However, as early as 2003, Wiener created an RSS feed with audio for the blog of his colleague Christopher Lydon, a former New York Times reporter and broadcaster.
The godfather and main popularizer of podcasting, however, is Adam Curry, former MTV host and later creator of the popular podcast The Daily Source Code. Along with Wiener, he was also active in popularizing RSS technology.
The word “podcasting” itself first appeared only in 2004, when British journalist Ben Hammersley combined the words iPod and broadcasting into the term “podcasting” – the production and downloading of spoken audio to Apple players. Thus, the format of podcasts officially appeared.
What is Podcast?
Podcasts are a modern version of a radio or television program whose episodes can be downloaded or listened to online at any convenient time, as well as rewound or skipped. The main quality of podcasts is the ability to subscribe to updates. Typically, podcast episodes are devoted to a particular topic and are published with some frequency on one, or more, platforms.
In terms of visual identity, all major operating systems have their graphical icons for podcasts, as well as all the specialized applications, but here we are going to have a look at the three most popular logos, associated with Podcasts. They are the emblems used by Windows, MacOS, and Google.
Windows was the first operating system to include podcasts. The logo featured a very simple composition, executed in a bright color palette. The white symbol of a microphone with two arched lines on each side is placed against a solid turquoise background, and accompanied by a delicate “Podcasts” tagline in the title case of a modern Sans-serif typeface, set in the bottom left corner of the square.
Google introduced its Podcast logo in 2018, and like all corporate logos, it is also executed in the iconic Google palette, composed of blue, red, yellow, and green. Unlike the windows badge, here it is almost impossible to guess what the icon represents, as it is set in a very abstract shape — of a rhombus, composed of nine vertically-oriented thick lines with rounded edges. Each of the vertical layers of the figure is set in one of the Google colors. It is a super stylish badge, which represents an innovative approach and diversity.
The Podcast icon was designed for MacOS in 2019, for the 10.15 version of the operating system. The badge is composed of a stylized white “I” in the lowercase; with a modified contour of the vertical bar, and its dot surrounded by two white rings, standing for sound waves. The composition is placed on a purple background, which can be circular or square (depending on the placement). The purple background can be gradient and plain, and sometimes the elements turn purple, while the background gets white.
Of the three logos, described above, only the Windows Podcast badge has a lettering on it. The modern title case inscription is set in a Sans-serif typeface, which is pretty close to such fonts as Iwata UD Maru Gothic Pro ExtraBold, or HS Gold Bold, with some minor modifications.
As for the color palette, here there are also three different options: a turquoise and white for the Windows, the iconic Google four-color palette for the Google Podcasts, and an elegant white and purple scheme for the MacOS one.