Last Thursday I received an email from a friend, George Colombo, that pointed me to an article that Apple had filed a patent for “customized podcasts.” I was immediately surprised and dismayed, quite frankly, because my business partner, Matt Thompson, and I had actually developed the technology (we called it Modcast) and implemented it on our former podcast, The Cubicle Escape Pod, back in June 2005. I wasn’t miffed at Apple for filing the patent, though with very little research they could’ve figured out there was prior art, but I was upset because I started to have second thoughts and regrets about why we didn’t push our concept harder.
To be fair, we weren’t the only ones doing it back then but I believe we were the first to do it specifically with podcasting and custom personalized feeds. Also in fairness to us, we tried to push the idea by building a few websites around the concept including The Cubicle Escape Pod, BrainDumpTrivia.com, and our last attempt, InkOutLoud. Hell, we even got a little press on our concept thanks to MIT’s TechnologyReview.com. But I can’t help but think that perhaps we gave up too soon on the idea.
When we first hit upon the idea, we thought about patenting it, but on top of lawyer fees and the expense and tenacity it takes to go through the patent process, we decided to settle on a trademark (which we eventually let go as well). At the time, the advice we were hearing was to go through with the patent process. However, as a software guy, patents bug me.
What Modcast did, in my opinion, was nothing special. It was a concept, not a technology. The underlying technology was no different than merging two text files or copying & pasting two paragraphs together. What was fascinating about the technology was its infinite possibilities. And we struggled with it. It was almost overwhelming to Matt and me. While we could, and did, easily create a few different services based around Modcast, it was very difficult to explain. We found it difficult to wrap our heads around the concept beyond what we knew it could do, and because of that, we found it difficult to talk about it, nevermind package it in a friendly manner for others to use.
However, all that aside, we knew we were on to something that could’ve been huge, but well aware that we were ahead of the times. I guess we didn’t have the stomach or the energy to will our idea to a mass market. And, really, that’s what entrepreneurism is — the faith that what you’re doing is the most important thing in the world.
So while it’s tough to read stories like this (which I decided to comment on and to my surprise had a few people back me up, including Emile Bourquin, who happened to cover what we were doing back then on his podcast, The Podcast Brothers), we must swallow our pride and hope that level heads prevail and Apple is denied this patent. Ultimately, it’s just wrong and by no means an invention but the gradual evolution of media.
