In a press release issued yesterday, and as noted on several Web sites today, editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected “podcast” as the Word of the Year for 2005. “Only a year ago, podcasting was an arcane activity, the domain of a few techies and self-admitted ‘geeks.’ Now you can hear everything from NASCAR coverage to NPR’s All Things Considered in downloadable audio files called ‘podcasts.’ Thousands of podcasts are available at the iTunes Music Store, and websites such as iPodder.com and Podcast.net track thousands more,” notes the announcement. The dictionary defines “podcast” as “a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.”
