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How podcasting happened.

Podcasting isn’t one invention, it’s a chain of unrelated ones that happened to line up. The people, the moments and the deals that made the medium.

The timeline

  1. 2000Dave Winer adds the enclosure element to RSS, so a feed can carry an audio file
  2. 2003Christopher Lydon publishes interviews through an RSS feed, often called the first podcast
  3. 2004Ben Hammersley coins the word “podcasting” in The Guardian
  4. Adam Curry launches Daily Source Code and helps popularize podcast apps
  5. 2005Apple adds podcasts to iTunes
  6. “Podcast” is named word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary
  7. 2014Serial launches and takes podcasts mainstream
  8. 2019Spotify buys Gimlet Media and Anchor
  9. 2020The Joe Rogan Experience signs an exclusive deal with Spotify
  10. 2025Amazon winds down Wondery’s studio as it reorganizes its audio business
  11. 2026OpenAI acquires TBPN, the daily tech and business show

The people who built it

Podcasting isn’t one invention, it’s a chain of unrelated ones that happened to line up.

  1. Nikola TeslaPioneered wireless communication
  2. Fritz PfleumerInvented Magnetic Tape
  3. Lee de ForestFather of radio broadcasting
  4. Gerhard SesslerCo-inventor of the modern microphone
  5. Karlheinz BrandenburgLead developer of the MP3
  6. Dave WinerCreated RSS enclosures
  7. Adam CurryGodfather of podcasting
  8. Christopher LydonRecorded the first podcast
  9. Steve JobsMade podcasting accessible to millions
  10. Ben HammersleyCoined the term

More to explore

Podcast newsHeadlines by year, plus upcoming events.Read and watchBooks, newsletters, films and YouTube.Jobs and the hall of fameOpen roles and notable jobs from podcasting history.The podcast graveyardEvery podcast business that didn’t make it.

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