I had this shower thought earlier and I actually wanted to post it in that community. The name I came up with was SmartWalkman, but later I realized that Walkman is Sony specific, so I doubt other companies would’ve gone for that name, but I didn’t want to let this shower thought slip so here I am now asking you guys.
iPods had an 82% share of the US market at the time the term was first used.
https://www.theregister.com/2004/10/12/ipod_us_share/
At the time a “broadcast” to you iPod made the name podcast pretty understandable.
And there’s not much else I could think of to call it given technology at the time.
MP3 player was the generic term. But MP3 cast feels clunky.
I did hear audioblog used. But they weren’t all blogs.
It really comes down to the fact that at the time everyone knew “pod” meant “iPod” and that’s it.