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  Wednesday, November 17, 2004 

Name that genre: screencast

After receiving a flood of responses to my name that genre puzzle, I've decided on the term screencast. Here were the choices:

Gavin Terrill democam
Robert Leftwich activevid, castware, dynamivid, dynavid, movieware, narrationware, prescast, presencast, softcast, vidarration, videoactive, vidware
Shiraz Kanga smoovie, screedio
David Ascher product interview
Joseph McDonald appbeam, appcast, appflick, appshow, appstream, displaycast, livescreen, screenbeam , screencast, screenflick, screenreel, screenscenes, screenshow, screenshow, screenstream, windowbeam
Luke Matkins moviecapture, movieshot, democam
Jason Brome democast
M. Sean Gilligan screen movies, video how-to's
Deeje Cooley screencast
Kartik Agaram democast
Brian Tol screenblogging
Frank Horowitz helppeg
Ross Wm. Rader cinecord
Hugh Emberson videmo
Thomas Passin democast, demovid
Paul Beard democasting, demosharing, screensharing, udelling
Ubaldo Huerta softreel, software reel
Peter Drayton appcast, appcap, appstream, appshow
Mark Kinzie appshow
Bruce Krautbauer screen video, screening video, video screening
Andrew Grubb converstream
Eduardo Molteni videodemo, demovideo, videoshow
James Cole usage capture
Simon Birrell advid
Hinnerk Haardt softmovie, screenmovie, screentake
Greg Wilson smoovie
Chris Vance democast
Tiago Simàes uldeo
Gavin Brelstaff screenplay
Marc Eisenstadt democast

Some terrific coinages here! In the end, although democast (6) and appshow (3) were proposed more often than screencast (2), I've decided to use the latter. Here's my thinking. Although I find appshow compelling, I'm not sure that app is an evocative term for a wider audience. And while democast has all the right connotations, it packs an extra syllable and your mouth has to work harder to say it.

Now obviously, people can and will call these presentations whatever they want. But when I invite someone to help me make one, or when I refer to one, I'm going to call it a screencast. Thanks to Joseph McDonald and Deeje Cooley, who both made that suggesion, and also to everyone who played along. The response to this naming game went beyond what I'd expected, and was really gratifying.

Finally, David Ascher reminded me that in the end it's not the name that matters, it's the process.

 


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