You could probably do a survey on this, or maybe it makes little difference to you, but "podcast" still sounds way better than "netcast". Why are we saying this? Leo Laporte, who was recently dubbed as podcaster of the year, with TWiT being just one of his 200 podcasts, wants to rebrand podcasts as "netcasts". Sounds like a real questionable idea, but Leo Laporte won't come up with something like this if he didn't have reasons. Take a look at them:

"It's pod or it's nothing." Basically, Leo Laporte and the rest of Apple's constituents have been all out to preserve the iPod's trademark copyright, after companies who copy, pirate, and try to claim the brand as their own. Laporte and Apple sees rebranding as the only way to keep from experiencing such an insult, and as a way to protect their product.

"Podcasts don't need iPods all the time." A bit on the deeper scale, it's interesting to know that it's become a common assumption for some that to download and listen to podcasts, they need to own iPods. Of course, this is mostly true, and this is precisely why Laporte thinks it's time to cast a wider net and rub out the limitation that podcasting connotes to non-iPod owners. In short, more people would share the world of podcasting once it's been replaced with a more generic "netcasting".

If Apple finalizes Laporte's proposal for rebranding, then it's time you bid goodbye to that beloved, albeit goofy "pod" term. For us, it's what brought Apple more recognition than it ever had. Whether a rebranding to a more generic name such as "netcast" would be welcomed by consumers remains to be seen.